Aurora's New Autonomous Truck Hardware Is Designed To Last One Million Miles

The self-driving big rig startup claims its Aurora Driver 2 suite cuts hardware costs in half.

Photo by: Aurora

By: Iulian Dnistran

Jul 24, at 6:39am ET

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Self-driving startup Aurora unveiled its second-generation hardware for autonomous trucks.
Aurora Driver 2 is more powerful, more compact, and cheaper than its predecessor.
The startup claims the sensor suite has been designed to last a million miles.

Aurora, the Pittsburgh-based startup working on transforming regular big rigs into autonomous trucks, has unveiled its second-generation hardware setup. The company boasts that Aurora Driver 2 can deliver one million miles of driverless freight transport thanks to the more robust sensors and tighter integrations, all while cutting hardware costs in half.

The biggest improvement compared to the first-generation product is the more advanced forward-facing Lidar sensor, which can now detect objects half a mile away on the highway in direct sunlight or during the night.

The company claims it has ruggedized every aspect of its second-generation hardware kit to keep it in tip-top shape under a full range of weather conditions, including vibration, abrasive dust, rain, and extreme temperatures. There’s an updated built-in cleaning system, which keeps the sensors clean by using small jets of water and air, allowing the truck’s electronic brain to see better during bad weather.

Everything is connected to a brand-new computer powered by Nvidia chips, which are powerful enough to process millions of data points, enabling the hardware to make decisions in milliseconds. The computer is fully redundant and is housed in a chassis that’s 40% smaller than the previous model, which reduces costs and makes integration easier.

The biggest promise of self-driving trucks is that they can drive nonstop to their destination, lowering costs associated with team driver configurations and cutting downtime. According to Aurora, its second-generation hardware can enable fleet owners to double the revenue per truck.

When it comes to single-driver trucks, Aurora claims that its autonomous trucks can slash delivery times by 40% on routes like Fort Worth to Phoenix, which traditionally require a mandatory 10-hour stop so the driver can rest.

Aurora Driver 2

Photo by: Aurora

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So far, the trucks equipped with the startup’s first-generation hardware have driven nearly 440,000 driverless miles, the company claims. To move things even further, Aurora has partnered with Roush to upfit Class 8 trucks with its second-generation hardware kit, with the goal of producing 1,000 autonomous big rigs per year.

Any truck can theoretically be retrofitted with Aurora’s new Driver 2 suite, but the company is currently upfitting the International LT, as well as the Volvo VNL Autonomous.