At Nvidia’s GTC Europe conference today, one of the company’s partners detailed plans to bring an autonomous delivery fleet to operating status starting in 2018. Deutsche Post DHL Group wants to put trucks on the road in partnership with auto supplier ZF by that time frame, using electric light transport vehicles equipped with ZF’s Nvidia-based ProAI self-driving system.
DPDHL will help make this happen staring now, by equipping its fleet of 3,400 electric delivery StreetScooter vehicles with ZF sensors, including video cameras, as well as LiDAR and radar. The data gathered by these vehicles will help inform ZF’s ProAI self-driving system, teaching the AI to be able to navigate itself along the delivery routes handled by DPDHL once its autonomous trucks are ready to come to market.
In addition to the Nvidia-powered ZF ProAI self-driving tech, which uses Nvidia’s Drive PX AI computers, DPDHL is also using Nvidia’s DGX-1 AI supercomputer in its data center to train the neural networks that will prove the basis for its future autonomous delivery fleet.
Nvidia and DPDHL unveiled the prototype electric light delivery vehicle at GTC Europe today, equipped with six cameras, plus two LiDAR sensors and a radar array.