Self-driving
Lorries to be tested on the major road by 2018- technology is really growing so
rapidly in other to eradicate the entire stress human being encounter daily.
The
British government has announced that by the end of the year a small convoy of
partially self-driving Lorries will be tried out on major British roads. The government
has been promising this awesome project since at least 2014. Last year for
example, it announced its intention to carry out platooning trial but was late frustrated
after some European lorry makers declined to participate.
Self-driving
Lorries contract has been awarded to the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) to
carry out the test vehicle “platoons”. The
question posed is how will this project function? Surely, it’s not by magic
instead a simple technology was put in place. Up to three Lorries will be traveling in formation with acceleration and braking controlled by the lead
vehicle. In the platoons, the lead vehicle will be controlled by human driver
and will communicate and pass instruction with the rest of the convoy wirelessly.
The following vehicles will be instructed to accelerate and brake by the lead
vehicle, allowing the Lorries to drive closer together than they could have
done with human drivers. These means that the lead vehicle will be the one to
communicate the movement of the other two lorries and enhance their operations.
The
new technology is built with many benefits such as; reducing fuel consumption
and emission and also reduces traffic congestion. Out of research, lorries
driving close together could reduce air resistance for the following vehicle as
the front lorry pushed air out of the way.
Another
benefit is that the self-driving vehicle could also react more quickly to the
lead lorry brake than human driver can. However, human drivers will still steer
all the lorries in the convoy.
Here
is another illustration on how the new technology will work. The lead vehicle
controls acceleration and braking, shorter distance will be created between the
trucks and the following vehicle instantly respond to changes in speed.
By the end of 2018, TRL will begin trial of the technology on test track, but these trial are expected to move to the major road.
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