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Ned Ludd never drove a truck. They didn’t exist in 1779 when, folklore says, he smashed a weaving machine in a “fit of passion.” This the young Englishman did after being beaten by his boss for idleness, or simply being told by his father, also a weaver, to “square his needles”—the accounts of the long-ago event vary.
Indeed, Ludd the man may never have existed, but in the next century, textile workers who protested the introduction of job-killing machinery, sabotaging a lot of it, did so in his name. These angry people came to be called Luddites, and the term today describes folks opposed to technological progress, especially the type that threatens human employment and dignity. Thousands of factory workers have been displaced by modern robotic machines that weld, assemble, and paint parts for all kinds of products. Often the robots do repetitive, intricate, hot, and sometimes dangerous tasks that are difficult for humans. After final assembly, products go out in trucks that connect those factories with each other, and take the items to markets where they are sold.
Driving regionally and over the road can be lonely and mind-numbing, but it employs almost 2 million people, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Eventually those jobs could be at risk, because autonomous technology now being developed aims at on-highway drivers. That load of in Colorado last year garnered much publicity.
News stories noted the presence of a driver in the cab, and video showed him stepping into the sleeper while the semi was underway. The implication: He could have stayed at home.
But some argue that even in advanced operations, a driver would still be needed to monitor the automated truck and, at each end of the haul, to guide the rig to where it needs to go. Others say no, because yards and terminals will also be automated. Robotic trucks could help solve the long-haul truck driver shortage that, except for recessions, has existed for scores of years, as well as turnover that in some companies exceeds 90 percent a year. The current shortage is estimated at 50,000 and will worseen as older drivers retire and young people can’t be found to replace them. But if enough over-the-road freighters could be run without drivers—singly or in twos and threes in a process called platooning—that might more than solve the shortage.
Will laid-off truckers become modern-day Luddites? Autonomous mining trucks In Western Australia, giant haul trucks have been operating autonomously in Rio Tinto’s Mine of the Future project, begun 10 years ago. Sam broadcaster pro trial. Komatsu equipment (above) uses GPS signals to guide the iron ore-toting trucks along trails as humans in Perth, hundreds of miles away, watch over them. Robotic controls enhance safety because they work hour after hour without falling asleep, and trucks run on 13 percent less fuel. Drilling and loading machines have also been automated, the company says, and locomotives on its private railway soon will be. Automation eliminates jobs, but Rio Tinto says it has been difficult to attract young people to work in the bleak Australian Outback anyway. In the same region, Caterpillar has applied its Cat Command automation system to a group of driverless Cat 793F haul trucks for Fortesque Metals Group at its Solomon Mine.
Day and night, the trucks continuously move iron ore, stopping precisely for loading and unloading. When directed, they come in for fueling and maintenance. Cat says it can apply its Command systems to other makes of haul trucks, too. For freight carriage, Daimler, Paccar, Volvo, and other truck and component manufacturers are working on their own autonomous truck projects. In Germany, ZF Friedrichshafen has an Innovation Truck that will maneuver around a terminal with no one behind the wheel. In the U.S., Daimler has set up a center for autonomous development in Oregon.
In Michigan, Eaton is working on a program that will enable a properly equipped tractor to back a trailer into a loading dock. When with autonomous hit construction? The leap onto on/off-road construction trucks, which run on busy city streets and suburban roads, and then onto job sites, will not come soon. That would be much more difficult technically and financially, according to Jason Roycht, vice president for regional business, commercial vehicle and off-road, at Robert Bosch. “Radar, vision, and ultrasonic actions don’t function as well in an off-road environment as on-road,” Roycht says.
“Construction sites don’t have level ground, and they have piles of dirt and materials that are there one moment and gone the next moment. Also, construction sites have a lot of people walking around, and they don’t have designated safety areas.” Most American Class 8 truck manufacturers now design, build, and sell their own diesels. Read Richard Bishop, a consultant in autonomous vehicle development for on-highway use, thinks large work sites could be automated.