The in-house mission control will provide insight and control to help customers maximise vehicle uptime and hours of service, and respond quickly to customer requests
Aurora Innovation provides self-driving technology for various types of vehicles, ranging from passenger sedans to Class 8 trucks. (Credit: Aurora Innovation Inc.)
Aurora Innovation has unveiled a cloud-based mission control system called Aurora Beacon to enable customers optimise operations of autonomous vehicles for round-the-clock operation.
According to the US-based self-driving technology company, the new platform will help customers of Aurora Horizon and Aurora Connect achieve the full potential of their Aurora Driver-powered vehicles.
Aurora Horizon and Aurora Connect are the company’s trucking and ride-hailing products, while Aurora Driver is an L4 autonomous driver system.
Aurora Innovation chief product officer and co-founder Sterling Anderson said: “Self-driving vehicles will provide much-needed capacity to carriers, networks, and fleets, allowing them to respond to unmet demand and grow their business.
“Unlocking their full potential to go beyond what conventional vehicles can do, requires the right operational tools. We’re designing those tools in the Aurora Beacon platform.”
Using the Aurora Beacon platform, customers will be able to access real-time data of each Aurora Driver-powered vehicle. These include its status, health, and present location.
Besides, the cloud-based mission control system will give real-time alerts regarding vehicle status, traffic conditions, estimated time of arrival (ETA), updates to missions, important weather events, and others.
Aurora Innovation said that another key module of the Aurora Beacon platform is a remote support tool which enables remote support specialists in offering guidance to Aurora Driver-powered vehicles. The users can seek support when they face a situation where the autonomy solution is not clear, like customised interactions with law enforcement officials.
This will help Aurora Driver-powered vehicles to handle increasingly complex scenarios in a manner that is both scalable and cost-effective.
Aurora Innovation said that as it nears commercial deployment, Aurora Beacon is anticipated to move from a first-party tool to one that can be incorporated by carriers, fleets, and networks into their existing systems through API.
Last November, the self-driving technology company wrapped up its $13bn merger with Reinvent Technology Partners Y, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Following this, it became publicly-listed, while being renamed Aurora Innovation.