Kids trial autonomous trucking

Eleven-year-old Emma Reinke and 10-year-old Nick Hoffmann recently became the world's first children to ride in an autonomous truck, with the pair recently joining Daimler Trucks engineer Enrico Wohlfahrt in a Mercedes-Benz Actros equipped with Daimler's Highway Pilot technology.

The children took part in the drive, conducted on a German autobahn near Stuttgart, as junior reporters for the Daimler Mathematics, Information Sciences and Technologies education initiative, otherwise known as MINT.

After guiding the truck onto the A8 autobahn between Denkendorf and Stuttgart airport, Enrico activated the Highway Pilot system and let the truck take over, the Actros using GPS data, in-built cameras and radar sensors to follow the road and maintain its speed in the flow of traffic.

The junior reporters checked that there really were no feet on the pedals and that the steering wheel really was moving by itself.

Emma asked Enrico, "Was the first time driving in the autonomous truck strange?"

"It was quite exciting," he replied.

Enrico admitted he was a bit nervous the first time he took his hands off the steering wheel: "But in the meantime I have been driven so many kilometres by the truck that by now I am very relaxed."

When the truck pulled up at the end of the short journey, Nick said: "What a pity it's over, it was fun."

Nick said he did not feel nervous during the drive.

"I felt very safe, even though Enrico didn't have his hands on the steering wheel at all," he said.

The Highway Pilot Actros made its debut last October with a demonstration of autonomous driving on the same route. It is the world's first series-production truck with the capability to drive autonomously.

Engineers will use the vehicle to continue developing automated driving technology for Mercedes-Benz trucks of the future.