Plus.ai, a provider of self-driving truck technology, has signed an agreement with the Transportation Research Center (TRC), which has an independent vehicle test facility and proving ground in Ohio, to carry out capability tests of its self-driving system using a rigorous multi-vehicle approach.

According to the present published standards, only one other vehicle test is required, however this programme makes use of a multi-vehicle test approach to simulate complex, real-world driving conditions for Level 4 commercial vehicle testing.

This programme is considered to be a key step to help Plus.ai in rolling out self-driving trucks.

Plus.ai COO and co-founder Shawn Kerrigan said: “Our team has been obsessing over every detail to build a safe and reliable self-driving system for trucks. Safety permeates everything we do, from software architecture, to redundant systems validation, to operator training and vehicle testing.

“We believe an independent party should validate a self-driving system’s road readiness using realistic, complex scenarios, much like humans have to pass driving tests in order to be licensed. We hope this becomes a model for the testing of all automated trucks in the future.”

The safety tests for Plus.ai are designed and implemented by TRC.

The testing will assess whether Plus.ai’s self-driving system can consistently handle multiple vehicle scenarios that simulate realistic driving conditions.

For example, the Plus.ai driving system will have to predict how the vehicles will react to each other, which is necessary to plan a safe way to control the truck’s response.

Tests will consist of highway driving in both free-flowing and stop-and-go traffic conditions, in addition to other scenarios such as construction zones.

These scenarios will be repeated across different weather conditions and under a wide range of visibility and lighting conditions.