Inside an autonomous truck chassis

If the aim in creating a self-driving truck is to improve truck operation safety, then it begs the question: What if a safety critical component fails? Think: electrical system failures that impact brake operation or steering controller and motors. Today's Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) already support braking and steering operation, offering a glimpse at the first step toward self-driving Level 4 autonomy, but what does equipment redundancy in Level 4 autonomous trucks really mean? Are there two sets of brake pads and rotors if the truck has disc brakes? What about steering motors--are there two of those?
Suman Narayanan, director of engineering, Daimler Truck North America (DTNA), was kind enough to take some time to put up with all of my questions and pop the hood of a Torc Robotics-outfitted Level 4 Freightliner Cascadia so that we can actually see the redundancy that putting in place with the autonomous chassis that it's delivering to both Torc Robotics and Waymo.
"If you think about it, the primary role of a driver goes beyond just controlling the vehicle in the lateral and longitudinal direction," Narayanan explained. Those are very key elements for safety, so we have redundancy in terms of braking system and also we have redundancy in terms of steering system. ... Today, a human driver is using his or her muscle power to make sure that they can control the vehicle [steering] without hydraulic support, for example. Now let's look at a world without a human driver behind the controls--need to have the same capabilities in these vehicles."
Watch the video for an eye-opening look at a Level 4 autonomous truck chassis.

[@manickamsomu]

One of the best demonstration of autonomous trucks..

[@sumanoharan]

Thank you for the kind words.