Vehicle systems developer Peloton Technology has closed an investment round for $16m in strategic funding led by Denso International America and Intel Capital in a bid to achieve new levels of truck safety and efficiency.

The company received financing from venture capital funds and industry investors, including Magna International, Castrol innoVentures, Volvo Group Venture Capital and UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund.

The latest funding is expected to boost Peloton’s development and deployment of truck platooning technology for the US and international trucking industries.

"Peloton’s truck safety and platooning technology has the potential to dramatically improve highway safety and operational efficiency for trucking fleets."

Peloton board member Rodney Slater said: "Peloton’s truck safety and platooning technology has the potential to dramatically improve highway safety and operational efficiency for trucking fleets.

"These truck safety and automation technologies are a key part of the systems that the US needs to address the dramatic growth in freight and traffic in the years ahead."

The vehicle automation Peloton Truck Platooning technology couples pairs of trucks electronically by combining vehicle-to-vehicle communications, radar-based active braking systems and vehicle-control algorithms.

Due to the direct communication link between the two trucks, the rear truck will be able to react to acceleration or braking automatically by the front truck, nearly resulting in improvement of safety.

By continuously monitoring individual truck safety, Peloton’s cloud-based network operations centre will approve the linking of pairs of trucks only on suitable roads under appropriate weather, vehicle and traffic conditions.

The system integrates active safety systems with cloud-based monitoring and makes individual trucks safer all the time.

Denso International America corporate ventures director Tony Cannestra said: "As a leader in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, we are eager to work closely with Peloton to implement the first large-scale deployment of V2V technology."