Autonomous driving trucks: fact or fiction?

[Until recently, autonomous driving vehicles were only the protagonists of popular imagination or fiction.
But the truth is that technology is taking giant steps to make them a reality in the not too distant future.
Getting vehicles that you can program, give them their destination and let them do all the work, while man is dedicated to other tasks, is getting closer and closer.
What is more difficult, and it seems that we will not see in the coming years, is that both the legislation and the characteristics of current traffic allow a level five, the maximum, of autonomy for a vehicle.  

Vehicle autonomy levels

As of today, there are five levels of autonomous driving, which companies and manufacturers are fighting to unlock as the technology advances.  

Level 0.
No automation

There is no automation of any kind and the driver is in full control of the vehicle at all times, without any assistance.

Level 1.
Driver assistance

This is the level at which the driver has some ADA (driving assistance) systems that make his or her task easier.
Automated functions, such as adaptive cruise control, assisted parking or lane keeping assistance.
All of these make driving more comfortable and safer, but the driver remains in full control and is responsible for most driving operations.
In addition, this level is characterized by the fact that the aids only act laterally (lane control) or longitudinally (speed and safety distance control), but never both.

Level 2.
Partial automation

The driver delegates tasks related to the movement of the vehicle, but must be attentive and present at all times to take control if necessary.
The car controls its movement, both longitudinally and laterally, but is not able to detect objects.
It can accelerate and brake, maintaining a safe distance and, in turn, control the direction of the car for cornering or lane keeping.

Level 3.
Conditional automation

At this level, object detection and response is added to the previous one.
Therefore, the vehicle is capable of driving itself, since its sensors detect everything around it (pedestrians, other cars, bicycles or other types of objects), allowing it to change lanes when it considers it necessary or to brake in dangerous situations.
With all this, the driver cannot be unconcerned, as he will have to take control in the event of any system failure or loss of optimal conditions (such as visibility for the vehicle’s sensors and radars).

Level 4.
High automation

No driver is required, as we add to level 3 the necessary technology so that, in the event of system failure or optimal conditions, a backup system would come into operation that would drive the truck to a situation of minimum risk.
This system would only be active under certain conditions, but in the event of a total impossibility to continue driving, the car would stop and the driver would have to continue.

Level 5.
Autonomous car

It would be a level 4 that would work optimally at all times, in all scenarios and without limitations.
That is, the vehicle would not require human intervention and would be able to drive itself at all times and under all circumstances.  

Advantages of autonomous vehicles

An autonomous electric truck could easily cover two to two and a half times the usual driving distance of a driver. Even counting loading and unloading operations, many of which could also be performed autonomously, up to 20 hours of driving per day could be achieved. At an average speed of 75 km/h, this would mean up to 1,500 km per day or 340,000 km per year. Moreover, the use of autonomous vehicles would provide an effective response to the increasingly pressing driver shortage by securing future supply chains. Another major advantage of autonomous vehicles is that restrictions on driving times and mandatory breaks would be eliminated. With autonomous driving trucks, recharging stops could be planned more flexibly and optimized comprehensively, depending on the route, the condition of the vehicle or its battery, existing infrastructure or energy prices. This would not only minimize costs, but also alleviate strain on the grids and power peaks. Currently most vehicles are between level 1 and level 3, so autonomous driving does exist, at least in part. What seems to be further away is to see level 5 autonomous driving trucks on our roads. These will have to have a complex system of neural networks, which will recognize patterns and a huge number of parameters, from which, thanks to Deep Learning, they will learn in trial/error tests. A slow process that will also have to convince legislators. A task that, according to experts, does not seem to be easy. What will be possible in the near future is that this type of vehicle will be used in closed or controlled environments, such as a port area or an airport, where patterns such as the location of objects and infrastructure or other vehicles are very clear. In the case of an open and conventional road, these patterns and their complexity multiply, increasing both the time required for training and learning of the neural networks and the cost. Despite all this, the race towards autonomous trucks is already unstoppable and when the law allows it and they are technically feasible, the immense benefits offered by this type of vehicles will mean the end of traditional transportation.[:]