Raphael Thys
Self-driving technology developer Waabi has announced the release of its Waabi Driver autonomous truck technology. The solution utilizes the company’s proprietary artificial intelligence-first autonomy stack as software which works in combination with sensors and compute as hardware. The complete system has been designed by Waabi to enable factory-level OEM integration, in addition to large-scale commercialization and the safe deployment of the autonomous technology.
Waabi driver is described as an end-to-end trainable system that learns from data to speed up development. This enables the autonomous truck technology to learn complex-decision making to ensure it can operate safely on roadways.
Waabi’s AI-first approach is empowered by Waabi World, a “school for self-driving”, which exposes the Waabi Driver to a wide range of roadway scenarios needed to improve its driving skills. This approach negates the need for thousands of kilometers of test miles on real roads, streamlining the research and development program dramatically as well as making it more sustainable and safer. On-road driving is only required during the final step of development for validation and verification.
Despite being AI-first, the Waabi Driver’s autonomy stack is modular and produces intermediate interpretable representations, enabling Waabi to trace and validate each decision that the truck and system makes. Additionally, Waabi Driver benefits from generalization capabilities which enable it to apply learned skills in a safe manner during unseen scenarios and in new locations which haven’t been driven on previously.
In addition to being designed for widespread deployment, Waabi Driver has been purpose-built with a focus on production. The solution is highly adaptable, enabling it to be applied to multiple redundant truck platforms and integrated with ease on the production line. Waabi’s hardware solution is plug-and-play, lightweight, simple to maintain and aerodynamic to maximize fuel savings.
Waabi Driver uses an array of sensors including lidars, cameras and radars to increase system redundancy and safety. By utilizing sensor simulation capabilities within Waabi World, the company is able to streamline sensor selection and integrate new technology efficiently while providing flexible autonomous systems for OEM partners.