Daimler demonstrates autonomous truck platooning; Highway Pilot Connect delivers ~7% lower fuel consumption
Daimler Trucks demonstrated the new Highway Pilot Connect system for autonomous truck platooning on the A52 autobahn near Düsseldorf. Three WiFi-connected, autonomously driving trucks operated on the autobahn with authorization for public traffic in a platoon formation.
Such a combination can reduce fuel consumption by up to 7% and the road space requirement on motorways by almost half, while improving traffic safety at the same time, Daimler said. Based on the Daimler Trucks Highway Pilot system for autonomously driving heavy trucks (earlier post), the three trucks link up to form an aerodynamically optimized, fully automated platoon.
Connected vehicles in a platoon require a distance of only 15 meters instead of 50 meters between them. This considerably smaller distance produces a significant reduction in aerodynamic drag—comparable to slipstream riding in cycling competitions.
In this way a platoon of three trucks can achieve the ~7% fuel saving, resulting in fuel consumption figures of around 25 l/100 km (9.4 mpg) possible for a loaded semitrailer combination with a gross weight of 40 t. This corresponds to a consumption of only 0.66 l/100 km (356 mpg) per tonne, or CO2 emissions of 13.3 g per kilometer per tonne.
In parallel with this, platooning allows much more efficient use of the road space: thanks to the shorter distance between vehicles, a platoon of three linked trucks has a length of only 80 meters.
In contrast to this, three trucks which are not electronically docked require a total of 150 meters of road space.
At the same time platooning makes road traffic much safer: while a human behind the wheel has a reaction time of 1.4 seconds, Highway Pilot Connect transmits braking signals to the vehicles behind in less than 0.1 seconds. This considerably reduced reaction time can make a major contribution towards reducing rear-end collisions such as occur e.g. when encountering traffic jams on motorways.
The smart, self-optimizing truck has the highest priority for us. Using connected communication between the truck and other vehicles and the surroundings, we can improve traffic flow and lower fuel consumption and emissions. At the same time intelligent trucks help to lower the number of traffic accidents. This is an important step on our way towards accident-free driving.
—Sven Ennerst, Head of Truck Product Engineering & Global Procurement
The basis of Highway Pilot Connect is networking between vehicles and precise awareness of the surroundings. Highway Pilot Connect is a further development of the well-tried Highway Pilot system by Daimler Trucks. This system allows trucks to drive semi-autonomously, and has been under test since October 2015, in a standard Mercedes-Benz Actros operating on public roads in Germany.
