Solution for driverless electric trucks

The Daimler subsidiary AXYARD has concluded a collaboration with the Zurich-based startup embotech. The partners plan to pool their expertise to drive forward the development of driverless electric trucks according to a press release.

Embotech thinks it will take a while for driverless vehicles to appear on the streets, but driverless trucks could already be used on private property such as airports or logistic yards. As such, AXYARD and embotech first plan to focus on this area.

AXYARD was formed as a spin-off from Daimler in 2020 and specializes in the automation of trucks. With this, it focuses on their use in yard logistics. 

Embotech was established as a spin-off from the Automatic Control Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) in 2013. The company develops motion planning software that controls steering, braking, acceleration and parking in driverless vehicles. Embotech’s solutions are not based on artificial intelligence or machine learning. Instead, the company relies on a deterministic mathematical approach. Based on the vehicle’s physical properties, navigable routes are calculated in real-time, for example. As this occurs without programming or training the vehicle, it can react to the environment in a fully automated way.

Embotech CEO Andreas Kyrtatos is quoted in the press release, saying: “We have created a new business unit at Embotech which combines yard logistics knowhow from the AXYARD team with world-class autonomous driving software from Embotech to offer customers complete Transportation-as-a-Service (TaaS) solutions. We are thoroughly excited about the potential of these solutions in the European and global yard logistics automation markets.”