Uncrewed Systems Technology 048 | Kodiak Driver | 5G focus | Tiburon USV | Skypersonic Skycopter and Skyrover | CES 2023 | Limbach L 2400 DX and L 550 EFG | NXInnovation NX 100 Enviro | Solar power focus | Protegimus Protection

26 Dossier | Kodiak Driver Why self-driving trucks work “I was there with our now-CEO Don Burnette, and it became clear to us early on that autonomous driving is very solvable, and you can engineer it to be as safe as you want – but the product case is much more complicated,” Wendel says. “With robotaxis for example, the bigger challenge was getting dropped exactly where you want and having the right arrival times, and that sort of thing is still very tricky. We have no doubt it will happen, but it takes time to make a well- rounded product out of that, as well as any autonomous road systemworking in urban environments.” Wendel explains though that if big trucks avoid urban traffic by using logistics hubs, truck transfer centres and gas stations outside cities, they can be kept to a controlled set of operating conditions, analogous to how robotaxis are often trialled in university campuses and business parks. “Don left Google in 2016 to co-found Otto, one of the earliest autonomous trucking companies, but that was acquired by Uber and he was forced to pivot back towards passenger vehicles,”Wendel says. In April 2018, Burnette left Uber to co-found Kodiak Robotics, with Wendel joining 3 weeks later at Burnette’s invitation. “I was the perception technology lead at Waymo, but through Don I’d learned that via trucking, we could get to a real product much faster, and fulfil the enormous demand for autonomy across logistics.” Kodiak’s fourth-generation truck represents that product. It is now highly matured technologically and tapped for use by IKEA, CEVA Logistics, US Xpress, Werner Enterprises and numerous other companies seeking solutions to their trucking problems through something buildable, scalable and maintainable by their technicians. Early r&d Kodiak started froma blank sheet, bringing together engineers fromWaymo, Apple, Uber, Lyft and other technology majors to ensure the concept phases were structured and executed pragmatically. “We didn’t have any Class 8 truck drivers though, let alone anywhere to store and work on a Class 8 truck, so we acquired a little box truck, equipped it with sensors and used that to develop the first build of our hardware and software stack,” Wendel says. “We also talked to several leading truck OEMs, and soon reached an early development agreement with PACCAR for our first Class 8s in December 2018. The model used as our platform is therefore a Kenworth T680, Kenworth being a PACCAR company.” By then, Kodiak’s first generation of hardware and software had been completed through virtual simulations and bench testing, ISO 26262 providing a crucial baseline for component February/March 2023 | Uncrewed Systems Technology ISO 26262 was a key baseline for component validation processes, with Applied Intuition’s simulations and Scale AI’s data labelling being crucial to Kodiak’s virtual and bench tests By operating only on freeways and other roads where pedestrians and cyclists aren’t allowed, Kodiak’s self-driving trucks can deliver freight within safe, controlled operating conditions