Get FinancingScania Make Progress On Platooning, Autonomous Driving Technologies
Scania has been a longtime believer in the concept of platooning, which is a term for when trucks or other vehicles travel as closely as possible, one in front of the other, in order to free up space on the highway as well as to improve fuel efficiency. It’s a formation that may seem dangerous, and probably would be if it was up to drivers to read each other’s minds and try to keep their speeds locked in, but that’s where autonomous driving technologies come into play. And that’s exactly what Scania has been testing and piloting over the past few years.
Recent Progress
While Scania has been investing in this system for some time, the company recently revealed that it has been working on a trial program using four articulated trucks and an unused airport runway. In this test, there is only one person actually manually operating a vehicle, and that’s the lead driver. The rest have people in the driver’s seat, but they are being controlled by the automated driving system. As the main driver accelerates, brakes, turns, or performs any other action, the idea is that the three other trucks will instantly follow in lockstep.
Consideration & Safety
These tests are important because they not only prove that the platooning concept works, they also give researchers an opportunity to throw in real-time disruptions that may occur out on the highway. For example, Scania introduces a rogue vehicle into the test at a random time to show how the trucks will react. What happens in testing is that two of them automatically separate to give the vehicle room to get between them, and then as soon as the detected vehicle is gone, they go move back into their original close formation.
More To Be Done
It’s still going to be quite some time before platooning systems are truly safe for use on public highways, but Scania is one company that is moving closer and closer to that ultimate goal. There are clear benefits, such as the potential for taking advantage of the slipstream to lower fuel consumption by as much as 12%, but there are also challenges to overcome. Scania has proven that the basic method for platooning is sound and that the system can account for interruptions from unseen circumstances or other drivers on the road. The next step is to perform similar tests on public highways over the next three years, and if successful, it may not be much longer until you see platoons of trucks rolling down the road.
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Source: Scania