Scania reveals fully autonomous cabless truck

A new milestone in the development of autonomous heavy vehicles has been passed with the development of a fully autonomous concept truck - with no cab - which was unveiled this week by Swedish commercial vehicle manufacturer Scania.

As different industries look to streamline transport assignments and make them more sustainable, self-driving vehicles are becoming a more viable option. Mines and large closed construction sites, for example, are prime environments for self-driving pilots since they are well-controlled locations.

“With the Scania AXL concept truck, we are taking a significant step towards the smart transport systems of the future, where self-driving vehicles will play a natural part,” says Scania’s President and CEO Henrik Henriksson. “We continue to build and pilot concepts to demonstrate what we can do with the technology that is available today.”

For autonomous vehicles, software is in many ways more important than hardware. Scania AXL is steered and monitored by an intelligent control environment. In mines, for example, the autonomous operations are facilitated by a logistics system that tells the vehicle how it should perform.

“We already have self-driving trucks in customer operations. However so far, they have been with room for a safety driver who can intervene if necessary. Scania AXL does not have a cab and that changes the game significantly,” says Claes Erixon, Head of Research and Development at Scania. “The development in self-driving vehicles has made great strides in the past years. We still don’t have all the answers, but through concept vehicles like Scania AXL we break new ground and continue to learn at great speed.”

The combustion engine powering the vehicle is an example of how traditional and new technology is mixed, and it runs on renewable biofuel.

Scania AXL was designed to be robust in order to operate in tougher environments such as mines and large construction sites. A new intelligent front module replaces the traditional cab, but even without a cab the concept is easily recognisable as a Scania.

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