With the meteoric rise of online commerce and shopping, tractor-trailer rigs have become ubiquitous. However, with the commercial vehicle driver shortage, and strict work rules governing the number of consecutive hours a driver can spend behind the wheel, commercial trucking companies are looking for solutions to continue moving at the speed of business.
Highly automated commercial vehicles (HACVs) utilizing various technologies enabling automation to offer a practical approach to managing the increased demand for commercial vehicles that keeps industry and commerce moving. Developments of HACVs face both technical and regulatory challenges to see final deployment. While NHTSA and state regulators are working diligently to enable higher automation in public roads in safe and systematic way, we at ZF are developing both vehicle and system level solutions to enable higher automation in commercial vehicles.
HACVs function at Level 4 autonomy – this means that the vehicle has a high level of automation making it capable of performing driving functions under certain defined conditions without driver intervention. Operational design domains define the functional parameters for HACVs including, but not limited to, geographic, roadway, environmental and speed limitations.