NVIDIA's DRIVE Platform to Power Volvo's Driverless Trucks
On the road again? Volvo is teaming up with Nvidia to develop artificial intelligence used in self-driving trucks, the companies announced on Tuesday.
Volvo Group announced Tuesday that it’s using the NVIDIA DRIVE end-to-end autonomous driving platform to train, test and deploy self-driving AI vehicles, targeting public transport, freight transport, refuse and recycling collection, construction, mining, forestry and more.
The two companies are co-locating engineering teams in Gothenburg and Silicon Valley. Together, they will build on the DRIVE AGX Pegasus platform for in-vehicle AI computing and utilize the full DRIVE AV software stack for 360-degree sensor processing, perception, map localization and path planning. They will also test and validate these systems using the NVIDIA DRIVE hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform.
The Volvo Group plans to introduce solutions based on NVIDIA technology across the entire spectrum of automation, from driver support systems to fully autonomous vehicles and machines. By 2040, delivery services will have to travel another 78 billion miles each year to handle goods ordered online, according to consultancy firm KPMG.
Autonomous trucks could potentially operate 24 hours a day, improving delivery times, and with increased efficiency, can bring down the annual cost of logistics in the U.S. by 45% — between $85 billion and $125 billion, according to experts at McKinsey.
Nvidia has previously announced technology partnerships with automakers including Volkswagen, Mercedez-Benz and Toyota. Tesla was also a major customer for Nvidia’s automotive chips, but last year, Chief Executive Elon Musk said the company was developing its own chip.
Take a look at a Nvidia's SHIELD getting blown up - 09/05/2013 06:11 PM
In the category fun videos, this would be the educational way of seeing what’s inside Nvidia's SHIELD ! A team of explosive experts tear down NVIDIA SHIELD to see what makes it run. Check...
NVIDIA's Cloud Rendering - 07/30/2013 08:42 AM
NVIDIA sent out a press release announcing CloudLight, a cloud-based "system for amortizing indirect lighting in real-time rendering." They say this new framework "explores tradeoff...
AMD snatches away NVIDIA's Sean Pelletier - 05/21/2013 08:36 AM
Interesting news, I've spoken to the man a couple of times myself. Sean Pelletier has left his position as Senior Technical Marketing Manager for Windows, Windows RT, and Apple notebooks at NVIDIA t...
Activision shows NVIDIA's Character Tech Demo - 03/29/2013 08:54 AM
It remains to be an impressive one. Activision - Real-Time Character tech demo. This is the same source data from ICT used by Nvidia at GTC, but rendered using a completely different tech. ...
NVIDIA's Project SHIELD - 01/07/2013 11:34 AM
NVIDIA announced Project SHIELD, a portable gaming device that also signifies a vertical integration move. Put simply, SHIELD is an NVIDIA-branded, Android-based (Tegra 4) portable game device with a ...
Senior Member
Posts: 856
Joined: 2015-11-13
Well, these trucks would still require a person to deliver the goods or collect that trash, so I don't really see that massive improvement that it is supposed to bring. Maybe areas such as e.g. agriculture, where a tractor can just go by itself on a predefined field is both much more useful and easier to implement.
Otherwise, I'd prefer to keep the self driving anything as much off the road as possible. The big issue I see is not really the AI, but the implementation. The computer requires a lot of sensor data, but a big problem is that the design of the car is on the first place, so e.g. an unseemly antenna will never pass to production, even if it perfectly fits the purpose. Instead, things that often barely, but look good, are produced.
Senior Member
Posts: 1327
Joined: 2010-05-12
Well even if they can just assist a tired driver, that would not be bad.
Junior Member
Posts: 7
Joined: 2014-11-27
Well, these trucks would still require a person to deliver the goods or collect that trash, so I don't really see that massive improvement that it is supposed to bring. Maybe areas such as e.g. agriculture, where a tractor can just go by itself on a predefined field is both much more useful and easier to implement.
Otherwise, I'd prefer to keep the self driving anything as much off the road as possible. The big issue I see is not really the AI, but the implementation. The computer requires a lot of sensor data, but a big problem is that the design of the car is on the first place, so e.g. an unseemly antenna will never pass to production, even if it perfectly fits the purpose. Instead, things that often barely, but look good, are produced.
All new cars will be self drive in less than 10 years, in 20 years it will be illegal to drive a car that isn't self driving and there wont even be steering wheels. These are just facts. The latest Teslas are ready for full self driving and will be doing so by next year, they don't need 'unseemly antennas' they mostly work off cameras.
As for trucks they will also be self driving even things like trash collecting will be automatic, you'll just have to put your bin on specific space or pad. Basically there'll be no jobs for humans in about 20 years and we'll just be fat slobs living off robots.
Senior Member
Posts: 331
Joined: 2019-01-18
The person is only needed to load/unload the truck, the drive in-between can be autonomous. It's a perfect fit in that way.
This is for trucks - no one buys them for their looks. In addition because they are so expensive then using expensive sensors/AI isn't going to increase the cost as much as it would with a car.
Note: It's not like Volvo have just started to think about this, they already have self driving trucks in use - e.g. .
Senior Member
Posts: 14642
Joined: 2014-07-21
... until they're going to be replaced.