Waving to semi-truck drivers as you roll past them on the highway may be a thing of the past. In the future, the driver's seat of that semi may be empty, at least if a company called Embark has its way.
The San Mateo, Calif. company today unveiled its self-driving big rig, which uses radar, cameras, and sensors to transport cargo without a human behind the wheel. The truck was specifically built to handle long stretches of freeway driving between cities.
The idea is that the truck would drive itself from one city to the next. At the city limit, a human driver would take over and navigate the rest of the way to the destination. Embark said a human driver would still be necessary for every load, but this system could offer a huge efficiency boost, letting drivers deliver more loads per day.
In a statement, the company's co-founder and CEO, Alex Rodrigues, said there's currently a shortage of truck drivers, and the problem could get worse in the future. Baby boomers make up the bulk of the industry's workforce at the moment, so the deficit is poised to grow as they retire, he added.
"Embark's goal is to increase productivity per driver and prevent the shortage from becoming a crisis," Rodrigues said.
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Embark earlier this year gained approval by the state of Nevada to start testing its truck on public roads. The truck can perceive the world around it and uses artificial intelligence to learn from its own experience.
By analyzing many terabytes of real-world data, the company's AI has "learned how to see through glare, fog and darkness on their own," Rodrigues said. "We've programmed them with a set of rules to help safely navigate most situations, how to safely learn from the unexpected, and how to apply that experience to new situations going forward."
Embark already has some competitors in the self-driving truck market, including Otto and Daimler. The Uber-owned Otto, however, is facing some legal trouble. Waymo, a division of Google's parent company Alphabet that took over the search giant's self-driving car project last year, filed a complaint against Otto this week, claiming trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement, and unfair competition.