Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/599934
Industry insider CHANGING LANES 16 DECEMBER 2015 // WWW.CHANGINGLANESDIGITAL.COM in baby steps, says futurist Thomas Frey. "Think about the way cars have changed over the years, from features like power steering to automatic transmissions to cruise control, and now we're adding driverless features," Frey says. "That trend will continue until we get to fully driverless cars. But I do think the trucking world will advance faster with autonomous technology than the automotive world because there's more incentive for fleet owners to adopt it – mainly the enduring shortage of truck drivers." Will platoons of trucks traverse our highways? By Jack Roberts Platooning– "connecting" tractor- trailers wirelessly as a convoy to coordinate their operation and control as they move down the road –"will be the first step in truck automation," says Josh Switkes, founder and chief executive officer of Peloton Technology, an early leader in developing platooning efforts. "It allows us to put trucks much closer together while still increasing safety because we have an automatic reaction to events by the rear truck." Peloton's truck platooning system is an integrated safety, efficiency and analytics platform that builds on advanced safety technologies such as collision mitigation and adaptive cruise control systems. the system couples trucks electronically through a combination of vehicle-to-vehicle communications, radar-based active braking systems and proprietary vehicle control algorithms. The results, Switkes says, are enhanced collision avoidance capabilities and increased fuel efficiency for the front and rear trucks in a two-truck platoon. "This provides a great fuel economy increase on both the front truck and the rear truck from aerodynamic advantages," he says. "Tt's really intended to help drivers do their jobs better and safer." A study of peloton's system by the North American Council for Freight Efficiency and C.R. England, using the industry-standard SAE Type II test, showed reductions in fuel consumption of 10 percent for the rear commercial vehicle and more than 4 percent for the front vehicle. That's what prompted Volvo Group Venture Capital, a subsidiary of the Volvo Group, to invest in Peloton, which also is developing a platooning network operations center, a cloud-based service to help trucks find platooning partners, collect vehicle and driver data and allow the approval or adjustment of platooning parameters. Can future trucks be 'hack- proof'? By Aaron Huff Talking to a truck's controller area network— CAN bus, for short — used to be a one-way street for most fleets. They could access information for review, but to communicate directly with the CAN bus to shut down the engine, lock the doors or perform other functions, they needed expensive aftermarket solutions.