After three weeks on the road without humans behind the wheel, Aurora Innovation is adding so-called “observers” back into their autonomous trucks running between Dallas and Houston.
Earlier this month, The Dallas Express reported that Aurora officially became the first commercial self-driving truck service in the United States. Now, out of an abundance of caution, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company is placing a human back in the driver’s seat.
Despite the change, the vehicles will still operate autonomously.
PACCAR, the Washington-based manufacturer of the Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks used by Aurora, asked that an observer be added “because of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform,” said Aurora CEO Chris Urmson in a May 16 blog post.
“We are confident this is not required to operate the truck safely based on the exhaustive testing (covering nearly 10,000 requirements and 2.7 million tests) and analysis that populates our safety case. PACCAR is a long-time partner and, after much consideration, we respected their request and are moving the observer, who had been riding in the back of some of our trips, from the back seat to the front seat.”
The Aurora Driver, the artificial intelligence-powered self-driving system, will continue to be “fully responsible for all driving tasks,” said Urmson. This includes safely pulling over along the route between Dallas and Houston if required.
Urmson says their autonomous technology has already logged more than 6,000 driverless miles along the popular I-45 route, and the announced changes will not impact the company’s development plans, near or long-term.