DHL Supply Chain is taking a significant step toward the future of transportation by launching autonomous operations in the United States, powered by the Volvo VNL Autonomous and the Aurora Driver. In this Q&A, Jason Gillespie, Senior Director of Continuous Improvement and Innovation at DHL Supply Chain, discusses the collaboration with Volvo and the potential impact of autonomous transport at scale.

What’s Related

Supply Chain 24/7: What prompted DHL Supply Chain to pursue autonomous trucking technology?

Jason Gillespie: We believe autonomous vehicles are a key enabler in addressing our goals, such as safety, performance, and emissions reduction.  Autonomous transport can accelerate delivery times and optimize supply chains, promoting a more resilient transport network.

SC247: What challenges did DHL and Volvo face in launching autonomous operations, and how were they addressed?

JG: It was important that we identified the perfect fit for testing, such as a forward-thinking customer willing to partner in this program and the right lanes suitable for this kind of movement. Additionally, while not a challenge but more of a milestone, VAS needed to build their VNL trucks and get production up and running. It was also important to us that we tested real AV trucks, not the modified Class 8s that are typically fitted with AV tech.

SC247: How were the initial routes (Dallas to Houston and Fort Worth to El Paso) selected?

JG: Texas has an ideal geography and climate for autonomous vehicle testing. It is also home to several major trucking routes suitable for automation. Texas is an important state in trucking, moving more freight than any other state in the U.S., and it is strategically located.

SC247: Can you talk about the “safety driver” and a timeline for moving toward fully autonomous transportation?

JG: The safety driver acts as a backup to the AV driver, often not interacting until there is a perceived need. This helps to train the AV to know what could or should have been done in any “edge cases,” such as an event that has never happened before to the AI technology. Both DHL and VAS are focused on achieving specific milestones, which ensures that we are not advancing something before we are all comfortable to do so.

SC247: How do autonomous trucks address issues such as driver shortages and increasing demand for long-haul freight?

JG: These trucks are best suited for the longer haul lane. We collect the freight with the human drivers on both pickup and delivery, then use AV for the middle mile. This gives human drivers better daily routes, allowing them to potentially do several runs in one day and still get home in the evenings versus being on the road for days.

SC247: What impact will autonomous trucking have on delivery speed, operational costs, and overall supply chain efficiency?

JG: We see potential for improved performance, lower costs at scale, and a more efficient solution that reduces the need for sleeper trips.

SC247: Safety is a key focus in autonomous technology. What specific features are built into the Volvo VNL Autonomous to ensure safe operations?

JG: The Volvo VNL Autonomous is the redundant base truck we offer as a part of our autonomous transport solutions. The Autonomous VNL is integrated with the Aurora Driver, the industry’s most powerful L4 self-driving system. The truck is built with redundancy systems to ensure that every safety-critical component is intentionally duplicated, thereby significantly enhancing both safety and reliability. The Volvo VNL Autonomous has the following systems:

• Redundant brakes – The redundant capability to send braking commands, each powered by separate sources, enables the ability to always brake safely. This setup ensures that braking capabilities are always available, even if one brake or power source fails.
• Redundant steering – We have two identical steering systems. If the primary steering fails, the redundant steering system assures that we can steer the truck safely to a stop. As with the brakes, both steering systems are powered individually by two different power sources.
• Redundant communication – Our two communication systems ensure we can avoid the loss of information flow if a failure occurs in a communication channel. Communication systems are used by our trucks to receive information from other vehicles and roadside units about road works, traffic congestion, and more so they can adapt their behavior to what is going on around them.
• Redundant Automated Driving System (ADS) – Our partner Aurora has redundancy in place for their compute and sensor sets (the Aurora Driver). The combination of long-range lidar, HD cameras, and imaging radar ensures the primary computer can get nearly a 360-degree view of the world around it. Two different sources also power the ADS.
• Redundant computation – Two computes avoid the loss of safety-critical functions if a single ECU fails. By having two computes, we can enter two steering commands into our system, that command then goes into the two parallel computes, and from there it goes into our two braking or steering systems. This means both the primary and redundant systems are always ready to handle any commands.
• Redundant vehicle motion management – This is the coordination of everything that affects the vehicle’s motion. Our vehicle motion management centralizes the handling of different actuators and the coordination of their tasks to achieve a common motion control goal. This is duplicated to achieve equivalent capabilities on the redundant and primary actuators.
• Redundant lights – Brake lights and hazard lights are partially duplicated, even though the industry standard doesn’t see them as safety-critical. We’ve added light redundancy because if the primary lights fail, we can still turn on the hazard lights and coast to a safe stop.
• Redundant power and energy storage – If we don’t power both systems independently, a power failure will lead to a complete loss of safety-critical functions. Therefore, we have two sources of power, which are separated and placed in different parts of the vehicle.

SC247: Looking ahead, what are the next steps for scaling this partnership and for the future of autonomous transportation in DHL’s global supply chain?

JG: Before we can scale the partnership, we need to prove this solution and grow the lanes we’ve identified. Once we feel comfortable with the AV hubs, enhanced inspections, performance, safety, and so on, then we can look to expand with other target lanes that VAS operates. We will have plenty of freight in the southern “sun belt” states, which will give us room to grow. Additionally, there needs to be legislation that will allow for seamless interstate travel across the US.