102 The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) returned to Las Vegas, USA, for its 2024 edition, which ran from January 7-12 in Eureka Park over an exhibition area larger than 2.5 million ft2 – 15% bigger than the previous year’s show. More than 4300 exhibitors presented their latest innovations for critical areas of tech advancement to the show’s attendees, who numbered over 135,000 and hailed from 150 countries, regions and territories. Among the most prominent themes were AI, mobility and sustainability, and thus the exhibition floor yielded a plethora of novel solutions, presenting tantalising opportunities to systems integrators in the uncrewed and autonomous world, a selection of which we present henceforth. Kodiak Robotics, which we previously covered with its 4th-generation, self-driving truck in our 48th issue (February/March 2023), attended CES 2024 to present its 6th-gen truck, slated for scaled deployment, including the company’s driverless operations between Dallas and Houston, which will commence this year. The truck was showcased at Luminar’s booth, Luminar being Kodiak’s foremost Lidar supplier. The autonomous vehicle and its system architecture, which is transferable to other vehicle types via the Kodiak Driver ‘kit’, are designed with redundancy across all safety-critical functions. These include: a redundant pneumatic braking system, consisting of three individual brake actuators that are simultaneously controlled by Kodiak’s proprietary software; a dual-redundant steering system using two redundant ZF actuators; a power system split into two completed, isolated subsystems for powering computers, sensors, actuators and so on (such that all safety systems can execute safe fallback amid failures); and Kodiak’s custom-designed, highintegrity Actuation Control Engine (ACE) system, which ensures the truck can be guided safely out of traffic should a critical system fail. The 6th-gen truck has 12 cameras, Nick Flaherty reflects on the myriad exciting products on show at CES, Las Vegas New generations February/March 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology CES 2024 attracted many innovations across autonomous and driverless vehicles, including Kodiak Robotics’ 6th-generation, 18-wheel truck
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