A robot truck from Mercedes rode on German roads



    Now many car manufacturers, and not only them, are creating automatic control systems for their cars. This area has become so developed in a short time that some countries / states have legalized the emergence of autonomous cars on their roads (the most famous example is California, USA).

    But what about trucks? In this area, the automatic control system for cars is no less, and perhaps more in demand, than in the case of passenger cars.

    Following the trend, Daimler demonstrated the operation of its truck with an autonomous control system, and in the field, on a real German road, near Magdeburg. The truck got its own name - Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025.

    According to the developers, the automatic control system can cope with driving on roads without a human driver, at speeds up to 85 km / h. The driver starts the car himself, and drives onto the road. Then the truck does everything on its own, giving the driver the opportunity to relax. The Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025 drove along an eight-lane autobahn, along with 20 third-party cars (both cars and trucks) to simulate a real traffic situation.

    The truck reacted to a decrease in the speed of the cars driving in front, reducing / increasing its own speed depending on the behavior of the "neighbors". In addition, the robot truck reacted to the emergence of an ambulance by moving to the right lane. Thus, the ambulance got the opportunity to continue on the left, high-speed lane.

    By the way, the Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025 has a steering wheel, so that the human driver can take control, if necessary.

    The system for the Future Truck 2025 includes the achievements of the Mercedes-Benz 2014 S-Class, presented last year . So far, this truck model exists in a single copy, there is no car for sale. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the possible price of the truck. According to experts, the addition of an automatic control system to a passenger car increases the price of such a car by about 10 thousand US dollars. In the case of a truck, one must think that this amount needs to be increased several times.

    Of course, in order for such trucks to travel on the roads of Europe, it is necessary to adapt the existing legislation. So far, EU officials are working on adapting laws for the appearance of passenger car robots (at least in the UK ), and trucks will probably begin to think a little later.



    Via nytimes

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