Mars Auto, the only Korean startup dedicated to self-driving trucks, has set its goal to go commercial based on its own AI autonomous trucking solutions.

Self-driving truck technology is fundamentally different from autonomous driving of urban passenger cars as trucks should be designed to travel at high speed from city to city.

One major difference is that self-driving trucks require a camera rather than a lidar as the main sensor because they have a long body length and a long braking distance, the company’s chief executive Park Il-soo told Maeil Business Newspaper in a recent interview.

Park has years of experience developing real-world machine learning applications after studying computer science at KAIST.

“Autonomous truck technology can improve fuel economy and increase truck turnover, increasing profits for both carriers and drivers,” Park stressed.

Machine learning-based AI can drive as well as a human driver and AI’s consistent driving not affected by the driver’s individual condition or changes in the surrounding environment contributes to improving fuel efficiency by 10-20 percent compared to a previous model. Park said. An individual’s driving ability and the driver’s condition are one of the main factors that determine fuel efficiency.

Manned autonomous driving technology allows drivers to handle more workloads with less fatigue, which increases their profits. Although cargo volume has increased over the past few years, the number of drivers has not increased, creating a market imbalance that could be addressed by autonomous driving technology, Park explained.

Mars Auto succeeded in test driving of its first self-driving truck in two years since its foundation in October 2017. A truck equipped with a camera and a small computer drove safely on the highway from Seoul to Busan for 5 hours and 30 minutes without driver intervention. Recently, the company established a joint venture with local logistics company LogiSquare for a logistics business based on self-driving truck technology. Mars Auto will conduct a pilot run with 10 semi-large trucks on Gyeongbu Expressway in the second half of this year, with a goal of commercialization next year.

By Oh Dae-seok, Hwang Soon-min and Minu Kim

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]