In a Heavy Duty Trucking article on “How Do Autonomous Trucks ‘See’ the World?,” Jim Park explores sensor technologies that can provide perception capabilities to vehicles.
In the article, our COO and Co-Founder Ognen Stojanovski discusses why camera sensors are optimal for low-speed operations on closed courses or in controlled spaces.
Cameras are the only sensors (in addition to GPS) needed by our Pronto AHS. Our design philosophy is that lidar and radar do not provide any incremental benefits. Those technologies are more prone to false positives in mining environments where rough terrain and dust are common operating conditions.
Pronto AHS is a Software-based Solution
In discussing Pronto AHS, Ognen states, “Our system is very software-heavy, artificial-intelligence-heavy and hardware-light.”
We believe fewer components – like lidar and radar – mean there are fewer points of potential system failure and no new, complex maintenance requirements.
Our AHS software learns a haul route from a mining operator manually driving a vehicle on the desired route just one time. Operators then dispatch trucks to saved routes from their smartphones via Pronto’s simple-to-use mobile app.
With our software, authorized site personnel can command vehicle operations wherever they are, whether they’re in the seat of the loading unit, at the crusher, or anywhere else where site supervisors work.
Looking Beyond Mining
In the article, Ognen shares another application area well-suited for our software.
Ognen discusses “deployment opportunities in places such as ports, where drivers’ time is wasted in long lines at the gates, or in drayage operations on short routes, and possibly on private roads, moving containers from the cranes to the railhead, for example. That sort of use case may not be as sexy as long-haul, but he says there’s incredible inefficiency in those operations that could be at least partially resolved by taking the driver out of the truck.”
Time to Automate Your Fleet OperationsTo learn how our software can automate your fleet operations, contact us at sales@pronto.ai, and join the conversation on LinkedIn and Twitter.
