Remote control truck hits Florida Highway: Video

Starsky Robotics hit the road this month with their first unmanned truck in Florida.

The truck mixed with normal traffic on the Florida turnpike and reached speeds of up to 55mph (88km/h) with nobody at the wheel.

But Starsky’s take on autonomous driving is different from that of other companies. Starsky has some autonomous features and computers in the truck, but actually has a person driving the truck remotely. The person is surrounded by screens and can see what is going on around the truck and act accordingly – just as if they were in the truck.

Starsky maintains that due to the lack of drivers (the shortfall in the US is estimated to be over 50,000) this way of driving could prove popular. In Starky’s world, drivers could work from a central hub close to home and not have to the burdensome travelling that most truck drivers have to endure.

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Recently the Washington Post quoted Strasky Robotics’ CEO and co-founder Stefan Seltz-Axmacher as saying: “When it comes to driving a truck, a decent person paired with a decent artificial intelligence is better than the best person or the best AI,” adding that engineers are a long way from developing AI that can replicate people’s fluid intelligence.

“The tech industry doesn’t give humans enough credit, but they are really good at a lot of things that computers don’t do very well. Even mimicking the intelligence of an animal is really hard, let alone a person.”

It is certainly another take on autonomous trucks and one that might not see drivers put out of work but actually enable them to basically work from home.