Blacksburg, Virginia-based Torc Robotics and Applied Intuition enters into a multi-year strategic collaboration to address the challenges of autonomous vehicle development to safely commercialize Troc’s autonomous trucks for over-the-road applications.
A pioneer in Level 4 self-driving vehicle software for heavy-duty vehicles, Torc Robotics is an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG while Applied Intuition is a simulation and software tools provider for autonomous vehicle development. Torc is currently developing a Level 4 autonomous system for long-haul trucking in the US, which will enable a vehicle to perform driving functions under specified operating conditions without human intervention.
Applied Intuition’s deterministic, high-fidelity, and physics-based simulation software supports virtual testing of Torc’s algorithms in US highway environments.
“At Torc, safety dictates every aspect of our development including how we test and validate our autonomous technology,” said Michael Fleming, CEO and Founder of Torc. “The Applied team has demonstrated their expertise and has equipped us with tools to accelerate the safe development of commercial trucks in a financially viable way. We’re excited to continue our collaboration with Applied to make our roads safer for society.”
Having entered into agreement in early 2020, the continuous collaboration will help Torc’s autonomous vehicles prepare for unpredictable, potentially dangerous events in the real-world and will enable Torc as it scales as a global organization. Developing autonomous vehicles is a complex engineering challenge, and algorithms require comprehensive training, testing, and validation. Applied Intuition offers technology that supports multiple types of simulation and development infrastructure.
“Simulation allows our team to test new features and capabilities of the autonomous system on hundreds or thousands of different scenarios in a virtual world,” said Ben Hastings, CTO of Torc. “This means by the time the autonomous truck is on public roads, the autonomous system has already been validated in many of the scenarios we could encounter. Above that, strong simulation capabilities are a pillar on our path to commercialization. With Applied Intuition, we are developing for the long-term with a product in mind.”
The close collaboration is an important milestone to forward Torc’s goal of commercializing fully-autonomous trucks. Fleming added he is confident that the approach will be the first profitable, scalable L4 product in the autonomous trucking industry.
“We are excited to collaborate with Torc to help them bring the world’s safest autonomous commercial trucks to market”, said Qasar Younis, CEO and Co-Founder of Applied Intuition. “Torc’s world-class engineering team has adopted many of our tools’ capabilities to design a state-of-the-art development approach. There are many more opportunities to collaborate in order to successfully deploy their trucks at scale.”
