While the major trucking giants race to see who will be the first to produce the best autonomous truck which will likely have incredibly hefty price tags, one upstart startup is working on a way to make even currently existing trucks capable of autonomous driving. And they’re looking for volunteers.

Founded by Anthony Levandowski, who is fresh off of working on Google’s self-driving car, the company, Otto, is attempting to bypass the eye-popping price tags that are likely to accompany new autonomous trucks when they finally hit the market. Instead, they are developing systems that would be installed on regular trucks to make them autonomous.

Levandowski brought in two other former Google employees as co-founders, Lior Ron and Don Burnette, and another robotics expert, Claire Delaunay. Together they created a system that has already seen its first test on public roads.





And it’s not going to stop there. According to the Associated Press, Otto is looking to install their system on 1,000 trucks – and they’re looking for volunteers.

The kits consist of cameras, lasers, radar and lidar sensors which would allow the vehicle to stay in a lane, govern speed, and slow and stop when necessary. Otto is designed for highway driving only; it is not fully autonomous yet and the systems are unlikely to allow for lane changing or point to point navigation, but the goal is for drivers to be able to use it from exit to exit. As Lior Ron in an interview with BackChannel, “when we feel safe enough, we’re going to virtually tap on the truck driver’s shoulder, and say, for the next 100 miles don’t worry, we got it.”

“We have driven on a bunch of roads in California and outside, testing the sensors,” said Ron. “And we’ve done driving with a safety driver in the back seat but the truck driving autonomously, and a couple of miles completely driverless without a driver in the back seat at all.”

Source: gobytrucknews, truckinginfo, abcnews, bbc, backchannel