EMERGING TECH
EMERGING TECH
EMERGING TECH
Starsky Robotics picks up $16.5M to put self-driving trucks on the road
Self-driving truck startup Starsky Robotics Inc. today announced that its effort to automate the logistics industry has received a boost in the form of a $16.5 million funding round led by Shasta Ventures.
The investment, which also saw the participation of several returning backers, comes a few weeks after Starsky reached a major development milestone. A semi truck powered by its artificial intelligence completed a seven-mile course in February without a human safety driver behind the wheel.
Starsky believes that the trial marks the first successful field test of a truly driverless truck to date. The other companies currently working on autonomous trucks all require an operator to sit in the cabin so that they can take over if the need arises. Starsky also relies on human drivers to ensure safety, but they do their work remotely.
According to Transport Topics, the truck used in the recent trial was supervised from an office some 80 miles away from the site. Starsky’s human drivers take control when a vehicle must perform maneuvers at low speeds or encounters a difficult situation such as an accident. If only a limited amount of input is required, they can issue commands for the onboard AI to carry out automatically.
Starsky has been conducting road tests with the system since last April. The startup said that on one occasion, a self-driving truck powered by the AI managed to complete a 68-mile trip without any intervention from a remote driver.
Other players working to bring autonomous driving to freight transportation have also begun to deploy their vehicles on public roads. Earlier this week, Uber Technologies Inc. revealed that its fleet of self-driving trucks are making commercial shipments for customers in Arizona. A startup called Embark Trucks Inc. recently announced that it has successfully completed a 2,400-mile trip from Los Angeles to Jacksonville, Florida, with an autonomous truck.
The new funding should put Starsky in a more competitive position against its rivals. The startup plans to invest the capital in growing its autonomous fleet and its staff.
Image: Starsky Robotics
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