Page 27 - EE Times Europe Magazine - June 2025

EE|Times EUROPE 27

Volvo Taking Platform Route to Scale Autonomous Driving Beyond Trucks

Front view of an Autonomous Volvo FH truck driving through a dark tunnel within the Brønnøy Kalk mine (Source: AB Volvo)

unload. The route takes them from 45 meters cation, Volvo Autonomous Solutions relies
below sea level in the open pit down another on partners who have the sophisticated tech-
115 meters to the lowest point of the tunnels, nology needed to handle the more complex
then back up to 100 meters above sea level, situations that arise on an open highway. The
where the crusher is situated. company first joined forces with Aurora and
“It’s a very challenging and demanding recently added Waabi as a second partner.
route to travel, and it requires a lot of energy “Volvo Group took the decision many years
going both downward and upward,” Langfjord ago to use a platform approach, and that’s
told EE Times Europe. what’s allowing us to integrate with multiple
As the trucks move between open exposed virtual drivers,” Kazmi said. “We use our own
areas and tunnels, the platform must com- in our confined segment, but for the open
pensate for the condensation on the sensors highway, we partner with other [vendors] who
caused by the sudden change of weather and have the strength to handle the more dynamic
temperature. The hazardous conditions also situations.”
cause changes to the terrain. “The weather The two application categories also require
conditions for the mining project are very different levels of redundancy. While the
difficult year-round, but especially in the mining and quarry applications present all
winter,” Langfjord said. “When you clear the the challenges of extreme weather conditions,
snow, you change the surroundings and the they also offer the advantage of controlled
path itself, so the trucks have to figure this paths. Because nobody else can come onto the
out.” road, less redundancy is needed for some of
For the mining application, the vehicles the critical driving systems, such as steering,
operate on controlled routes without pedes- power, braking, and compute. But in highway First prototype of the autonomous Volvo
trians or other vehicles. This significantly applications, such as the route between Dallas VNL integrated with Aurora Driver
simplifies the operational domain and reduces and Houston, the environment is dynamic technology (Source: AB Volvo)
the complexity of the autonomous driving and full of surprises. Volvo therefore builds
task. Volvo Autonomous Solutions therefore redundancy into all the critical systems to fix the problem at scale. To do that, we have
built and deploys its own virtual driver for ensure safety. taken a platform approach.
mining and quarry scenarios. “There are no “Many companies will eventually get to the “We do this use case with DHL,” Kazmi
road markings, since it’s an off-road environ- point where they remove the safety driver,” added. “But when the time comes to move
ment,” Kazmi said. “For such dynamic use Kazmi said. “But can they get to tens and to other brands of Volvo Group or other use
cases, we handle the mapping ourselves, con- then hundreds and then thousands of trucks? cases, we will be able to scale quickly, because
tinuously collecting new data to make regular That’s where the true benefits for highway we already have a solid platform.” ■
updates as the environment evolves.” trucking will be. There is a growing shortage
Rather than use its own virtual driver for of drivers. Autonomous trucking on a small Pat Brans is a contributing writer for
the hub-to-hub on-road transportation appli- scale will not add much value. You need to EE Times Europe.

www.eetimes.eu | JUNE 2025