(Blacksburg, Va.) Torc Robotics will scale its self-driving truck testing in the Southwest in early 2021 using an enhanced prototype truck developed with Daimler Trucks North America. This new generation of Freightliner Cascadia test trucks bolsters Torc’s capability to develop and test its Level 4 self-driving technology.
The test trucks, internally known as ‘Gen 2’ are the second iteration of trucks jointly developed by the trucking and technology companies. This milestone is one of many along the Daimler-Torc journey to realize their vision of becoming the standard in self-driving trucking and advance their mission of saving lives.
Torc and Daimler Trucks’ ultimate goal is to reinvent the truck by co-developing a Level 4 Freightliner Cascadia which includes safety-critical redundancy components, as well as the seamless integration of additional computes and hardware required for self-driving technology.
“To meet the redundancy and performance requirements of a self-driving truck, the traditional truck chassis must be reinvented. Just like any major innovation, it requires a stair-step approach toward the final product. We are taking this one step at a time, with safety as our guiding principle,” said Michael Fleming, Torc’s CEO. Torc has been commercializing its self-driving technology in heavy-duty applications for more than a dozen years. Fleming says Torc is directly applying this experience to solve the challenges ahead.
In 2019, Torc and Daimler Trucks created a unique relationship in the trucking industry by combining the pioneer and leader in trucking and a pioneer and leader in self-driving technology. This combination of complementary technologies created the foundation for Torc and Daimler Trucks to bring self-driving trucks to market within the decade.
“We knew from the outset that self-driving technology cannot be commercialized without an OEM. In trucking, there are only a handful of OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] and we were fortunate to join the industry leader,” Fleming said.
The goal: a Level 4 integrated truck that provides true customer value
“Our partnership with Torc is critical to our efforts to commercialize a Level 4 highly automated truck,” said Roger Nielsen, president, and CEO of Daimler North America. “Torc’s experience with developing self-driving technology and their focus on safety makes them the ideal partner. Our joint goal is a Level 4 integrated truck that provides true customer value.”
Market-ready self-driving trucks must emulate the actions of the most experienced and safe truck drivers. The partners are developing software and hardware that is seamlessly integrated to reliably handle failures of safety-critical vehicle components, such as braking, steering, power distribution, and messaging.
The team’s vision for a Level 4 vehicle platform is one in which component redundancies and software behaviors work together. In the case of a brake failure in a Level 4 truck, redundancies would maintain the vehicle’s ability to decelerate and stop without human intervention. Torc’s self-driving software would then be able to maneuver to a safe location so a support crew could service the brake system, according to Torc founder, Michael Fleming.
Another integral behavior the team is working to replicate is the way experienced truck drivers are able to feel component failures. “Our software engineers are working with highly skilled truck drivers to understand this experience and transition this human intuition into embedded sensors and algorithms,” Fleming said.
Iterative truck generations for development
Torc and Daimler Trucks North America expect to develop multiple iterative test truck models before they release a self-driving truck for commercial customers. The prototypes will incorporate many lessons learned from testing and development since the partners started working together in 2019. The upgrades included in the ‘Gen 2’ prototype truck are specifically designed to bolster the testing effort and accelerate data collection to assist in machine learning and algorithmic development.
Improvements in data collection and transfer will help the development team expand capabilities quickly and safely, supporting Torc’s effort to scale its test fleet in multiple locations. Additional sensor density and coverage will assist in overall high-fidelity perception performance and long-range sensing power, critical for highway driving.
Both companies have stated that they will only deploy self-driving trucks when they are safe and reliable – not by a set date. Fleming is convinced the team will meet its goal, because “We are two pioneers joining forces – we understand the complexities of commercializing self-driving technology. Our mission is to save lives and our vision is to become the standard in self-driving trucking.”
About Torc Robotics
Torc Robotics, headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia, is a member of the Daimler Trucks family, the global market-share leader and pioneer in trucking. Founded in 2005 at the birth of the self-driving vehicle revolution, has 15 years of experience in pioneering safety-critical, self-driving applications. Today, vehicles using Torc’s self-driving technology operate on multiple continents. The firm offers a complete self-driving vehicle software and integration solution and is currently focusing on commercializing self-driving trucks. “Trucking is the backbone of the U.S. economy, delivering food and products to every community in the country,” said Torc CEO Michael Fleming. “Daimler has led innovation in trucking for a century, from the first truck to driver assist technology. In partnership with Daimler, Torc will commercialize self-driving trucks to make our roads safer and better fulfilling our mission of saving lives.”
(Blacksburg, Va.) Torc Robotics and Daimler Trucks have released a video showing footage of their testing of self-driving trucks on a closed-course on Virginia’s Smart Road and along highways in the Blacksburg, Virginia area, including I-81. Scenes include driving in varying weather conditions, up steep grades, and along construction zones.
The video was released in celebration of one year of accomplishments by the partnership and to announce expanded testing in New Mexico. Torc has been testing Freightliner trucks, equipped with Torc’s self-driving vehicle system, on public highways in Virginia since last September.
Virginia is an ideal testing location for Torc Robotics, which has tested numerous vehicle platforms on public roads for 14 years. “Virginia’s highways provide a combination of steep grades, varying traffic types, and weather that has allowed us to expand and test our capabilities,” said Torc CEO Michael Fleming. “Torc will continue to test in Virginia, as our headquarters location provides an ideal area for our development team.” Last month, Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam announced Torc’s plans to significantly expand the product development team in Virginia.
All automated runs require both a safety conductor and a highly trained safety driver certified by Daimler Trucks and Torc Robotics. All safety drivers hold a commercial driver’s license and are specially trained in vehicle dynamics and automated systems.
Due to the pandemic, Torc halted daily on-road testing in March, but was able to resume in June, following stringent safety protocols to help protect its team. Although all automated runs require both a safety driver and safety conductor to be in the cab together, physical separation measures and additional cleaning protocols have been put in place.
During the months that Torc and Daimler Trucks paused their daily on-road testing, the partners concentrated on scalability, improving infrastructure tools and the simulation platform, and extending the software capabilities. “Instead of daily on-road testing, we strengthened our foundation, which has catapulted our abilities,” said Torc CEO, Michael Fleming. Trucks equipped with the next-generation system begin testing this fall.
Earlier this month, Torc and Daimler Trucks North America announced an expansion of their on-road testing. In addition to ongoing on-road testing in Virginia, the team is now testing in New Mexico and Torc is establishing a testing center in Albuquerque.
Daimler Trucks and Torc are committed to commercializing self-driving trucks within the decade. Both companies, however, have stated that safety determines the timeline.
(Blacksburg, Va.) Former NASA safety engineering executive John Marinaro has joined Torc Robotics, the leader in self-driving trucking, as director of operational safety and testing — and member of the executive team. In this role, Marinaro has oversight and risk management responsibilities for Torc’s self-driving vehicle testing operations as well as corporate safety policies, procedures and auditing.
“We are very excited to have John join our team and lead our safety programs,” said Michael Fleming, Torc’s Founder. “Our mission is saving lives through self-driving technology, and safety is a key driver of our operations. NASA-level safety is required to commercialize self-driving trucks and we look forward to John applying skills and expertise gained in other pioneering organizations.”
Marinaro served as director of safety engineering technical excellence at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Safety Center. He was appointed to his position at the NASA Safety Center in 2009, after serving as the director of the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel during Space Shuttle Return-to-Flight following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
“I carry that experience with me,” said Marinaro. It changed the course of his career, shifted his professional priorities, and set the standards by which he analyzes risk: “Test smartly and safely – Don’t hurt others. Don’t hurt ourselves. Don’t hurt our equipment.”
Marinaro intends to bring those standards and experiences to bear on his role with Torc’s senior executive team.
“Torc is doing a good job already,” said Marinaro. “I want to embrace their safety analysis procedures and make them more formal and structured as the company grows and the technology advances.”
How does he plan to achieve this for a new technology? By pulling in and improving the best risk management practices from multiple industries and focusing on structured and formal safety engineering.
“Engineers, by nature, like to create everything themselves, but we shouldn’t need to learn lessons that others have already mastered,” explained Marinaro. “If we can adopt and improve someone else’s best practices, we’ll get a lot farther a lot faster,” he said.
Risk is inevitable, Marinaro pointed out, especially when it comes to technology that has the potential to change the world: “There’s going to be inherent risk. We have to understand it, bind it, mitigate it, and operate within its constraints.”
The biggest challenges in operational safety are always the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns, said Marinaro.
“Our job is to anticipate when the system will operate unexpectedly, to understand why, and to make sure we’ve done enough before we put our self-driving technology on the road.”
(Blacksburg, Va. – Sept. 3, 2020) Torc Robotics and Daimler Trucks will expand their joint self-driving truck on-road testing to New Mexico this month and establish a test center in the Albuquerque area. This announcement by Daimler Trucks and Torc coincides with the two companies celebrating their one-year partnership anniversary of Torc joining the Daimler Trucks family as part of the global Autonomous Technology Group.
At the end of August 2019, Daimler Trucks, the market leader in trucking, invested in a majority share of Torc Robotics, as part of its commitment to introduce self-driving trucks within the decade. Torc remains a separate entity fostering innovation in self-driving technology. Torc has a highly refined self-driving vehicle software stack that has been commercialized on multiple heavy-duty platforms and has been tested on public roads for more than 12 years. The Daimler Trucks/Torc team is committed to introducing self-driving trucks and the partners understood from the beginning that such a commercial undertaking would require a deep integration of the two teams.
The expansion of on-road testing routes follows a year of exploration by the partners who joined their expertise and experience to develop the foundational structure for an unprecedented large-scale technology commercialization. “Our deep partnership has enabled us to progress faster and further,” said Torc CEO and Founder Michael Fleming. “Torc has gained the data and perspective for developing technology for the trucking industry, plus a partner that is committed to safety. Daimler Trucks engineers have learned how the technology will impact truck design – and gained an experienced technology partner with a robust software stack,” he said.
“The partnership has enabled both our teams to move faster on developing Level 4 trucks,” said Dr. Peter Vaughan Schmidt, Head of Autonomous Technology Group at Daimler Trucks. “We will implement the results of our collaboration in the next phase of public road testing later this year.”
Major decisions from the collaboration include reinventing the truck chassis for self-driving functionality and developing a hub-to-hub operations model in collaboration with Daimler Trucks North America. The partners have also built a strong foundational infrastructure for commercializing at scale, including formalized rigorous testing and validation protocols, stringent truck safety driver certification processes, a next-generation simulation platform, and extended software capabilities.
Last September, Torc added Freightliner self-driving-equipped trucks to its fleet of test vehicles on public roads in Virginia. Results from those tests have been incorporated into a next-generation system that will be tested in both states. “Virginia provides us with a wide variety of conditions in close proximity to each other and to our engineering team. We will always continue to test here,” said Fleming. “We are expanding testing to new public routes in New Mexico to collect data in different situations along a major long-haul trucking route for the United States. Like Virginia, New Mexico’s highway system offers a range of road and weather conditions.” The team announced expansion plans in February, but they were delayed by the pandemic.
The partnership’s Level 4 self-driving trucks are deployed only after extensive testing and safety validation in simulation and on closed-course tracks in Madras, Oregon, at Daimler Trucks North America’s High Desert Proving Grounds. “Every truck we put on the road meets the high standards of Daimler Trucks and Torc Robotics,” Fleming said.
All automated runs require both a safety conductor and a highly trained safety driver certified both by Daimler Trucks and Torc Robotics. All safety drivers hold a commercial driver’s license and are specially trained in extreme vehicle dynamics and automated systems, making them a robust, safe choice for the operation of autonomous prototype vehicles. The trucks used for the testing will be hauling a trailer with added weight to simulate a load.
Torc has tested its self-driving vehicle system on multiple platforms and in many states, including a cross country trip in 2017. The self-driving truck on-road testing is on a commercial-scale timeframe. “There is a big difference between proof-of-concept or demonstration testing, and testing for commercial scale operations,” Fleming said. “Previously, when we commercialized our technology on other platforms, the development and testing followed a different timeline from proof-of-concept work. At Daimler Trucks’ scale, safety dictates our timeline. Torc’s mission is to save lives through self-driving technology; Daimler’s reputation is based on safety, reliability, and innovation.”
Commercializing self-driving technology for trucking requires extensive cooperation with customers, community leaders, regulators, policy makers, first responders, and drivers to ensure it has appropriate value in the marketplace and is accepted by society, according to Fleming.
Torc teams have been mapping routes in New Mexico to prepare for the on-road testing program and Torc is recruiting team members in the region. Positions include test engineer, safety conductor, safety driver trainer, site operation and office management.
Torc has also been recruiting heavily for its growing engineering team in Blacksburg, Virginia, for software engineering positions, including infrastructure and tools, web development, Linux, and cloud technology.
(BLACKSBURG, VA) Torc Robotics doubled its headquarters facility this week in Blacksburg, Virginia with the completion of a major construction project. Although the nearly 16,000 square-foot expansion marks another milestone in Torc’s growing role as a powerhouse in automated truck technology, it is already insufficient space for the whole team.
Torc, the leader in commercializing heavy-duty, self-driving vehicle and trucking technology, has been on a growth tear for the past five years. The company got an extra bump last fall when Daimler Trucks acquired a majority stake in the firm, with a commitment to commercializing Level 4 automated trucks within the decade. The partners are working on integrating the technology while developing the trucks to accommodate necessary redundancies and streamline system integration.
“After embarking on the truck effort, we immediately needed more space for our growing team to collaborate and for the big trucks in our garage bays,” said Michael Fleming, Torc Founder. The expansion is 15,800 square-feet, two-stories tall, and encompasses a variety of uses including offices, community rooms, garage bays and parking. “We’re happy to have this extra space, but we have even bigger plans to accommodate our growing team,” Fleming said.
In May, Torc announced that the firm would increase company size by more than 50 percent. “This is just the start,” Fleming said. “Over the next several years, we will be hiring aggressively. Expect more announcements from Torc,” he said. “Commercializing automated trucks on public roads is complex and we will need additional talent to get us there.” Torc is continuing to recruit for many software engineering positions, including infrastructure and tools, web development, Linux, and cloud technology.
Torc’s headquarters is located in Blacksburg, Virginia, which is often considered an up and coming region for advanced technology. Torc will remain in Blacksburg, Fleming said, but will also establish other locations as the Level 4 truck technology and testing develops.
“We believe our location has been part of our success,” Fleming said. “I came out of Virginia Tech, so this seemed like the ideal place to launch a company. People in this area tend to pursue efforts for the longer term. They are also very hardworking and humble. I’ve always believed that a revolution and a disruption like bringing self-driving trucks to market is a marathon — not a sprint and it doesn’t happen overnight.”
While Torc’s headquarters expansion is complete, it is not fully occupied because of the pandemic. Some employees are beginning to move back into the offices, but many employees are still working from home at this time. “We’re looking forward to when we can all return to our office and enjoy working in the new headquarters space,” Fleming said.
About Torc Robotics
Torc Robotics, headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia, is a member of the Daimler Trucks family. Torc offers a complete self-driving vehicle software and integration solution and is currently focusing on commercializing self-driving trucks. Torc has more than 10 years of experience in automating heavy equipment for safety-critical operations.
