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Daimler shows off semi-autonomous platooning
DUSSELDORF, GERMANY -- Daimler Trucks has taken its leading-edge status one rather large step forward with the introduction of its Highway Pilot Connect platooning system. In a demonstration here today, three semi-autonomous Mercedes-Benz Actros tractors pulled their trailers down the A52 autobahn in a platoon formation -- 15 meters or 49 ft apart -- and eventually into the massive hall where some 300 journalists had been assembled for the occasion. It's a world first, of course. We've seen platooning demonstrations before, going back several decades in fact, but never with semi-autonomous trucks. Three semi-autonomous Mercedes tractor-trailers form a three truck platoonHighway Pilot Connect is based on the existing Highway Pilot system that Daimler showed off in 2014 with its Future Truck 2025 program, the first semi-autonomous heavy truck to hit the road. That was dramatic but it was on a closed German highway. It was followed last May with the introduction by Daimler Trucks North America of the Freightliner Inspiration Truck which travelled down some very public roads in Nevada. And it was licensed to do so, also a world first.
