Latest news with #KodiakRobotics
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Kodiak integrates NXP processors to support autonomous truck operations
Autonomous vehicle technology developer Kodiak Robotics has announced the integration of a range of NXP Semiconductors' automotive processors and networking interfaces to enhance the performance of its autonomous system. See also: How software is shaping the future of mobility The integration includes NXP's S32K3 microcontroller, S32G3 vehicle network processor, VR5510 power management integrated circuit, and PF53, all of which have been incorporated into Kodiak's Actuation Control Engine (ACE) from the main autonomy system. The ACE ensures that Kodiak's AI-powered autonomous system, Kodiak Driver, can execute a controlled stop during a safety-critical component failure. NXP's technology is central to this capability, enabling functions such as vehicle performance monitoring and on-vehicle power management. Its automotive solutions improve the Kodiak Driver's reliability by enhancing the system's self-diagnostic capabilities, which contributes to increased vehicle uptime. Also, the flexibility offered by NXP's vehicle interfaces is expected to facilitate the adaptation of the Kodiak Driver to various vehicle platforms. The 'high-performance' computing and in-vehicle network processors of NXP are designed to support the integration, safety requirements, and real-time performance needs of Kodiak's autonomous system. They are said to be compliant with the ISO 26262 safety integrity level, ASIL-D, which signifies a low failure rate. These processors are crucial for the Kodiak Driver's control over vehicle functions such as braking, steering, throttle, as well as power management, according to the Kodiak press release. This compliance aids Kodiak in its pursuit of developing a scalable and safety-critical computing platform suitable for driverless trucks. Kodiak Robotics CEO and founder Don Burnette said: "Driverless trucks require powerful and reliable safety-critical computing platforms which meet our rigorous safety standards. 'By incorporating NXP's automotive solutions into the Kodiak Driver, we are positioned to incorporate the highest classification of automotive safety into our autonomous system more efficiently, and at scale." In April 2025, Kodiak signed a definitive business combination agreement with Ares Acquisition Corporation II (AACT), a special purpose acquisition firm affiliated with Ares Management Corporation. "Kodiak integrates NXP processors to support autonomous truck operations" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
TechCrunch
25-06-2025
- Automotive
- TechCrunch
Kodiak is using Vay's remote driving tech in its self-driving trucks
Self-driving trucks developed by Kodiak Robotics contain some remote-driving DNA courtesy of Vay, a driverless car-sharing startup out of Berlin. The two companies, which announced a partnership Wednesday, have been working together since last year when Kodiak's self-driving trucks began making driverless deliveries for Atlas Energy Solutions in the oil-rich Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. And it will play a critical operational and safety role when Kodiak, which plans to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company, begins commercial driverless deliveries on public highways in Texas in the second half of 2026. Remote driving, also called teleoperations, has emerged as a bridge technology of sorts for autonomous vehicles. The technology is often used to support sidewalk delivery robots, low speed autonomous shuttles, and even self-driving forklifts. The rise of robotaxis has brought new attention — and speculation of which companies are using it — to the technology. Vay's remote-driving technology plays a supporting role to Kodiak's autonomous driving system. The two technologies work together — each one with its own redundant systems and guardrails — to allow a human to remotely control a Kodiak self-driving truck in certain low-speed environments. Vay's teleoperations rig includes a steering wheel, screen, vehicle controls, and software that lets a human driver — using low latency communication and located in a remote location — to operate the Kodiak truck. However, Kodiak's self-driving system, and specifically its proprietary 'assisted autonomy' technology, still has control. That means the underlying automated driving system is still active and setting limits on what the remote human driver can do if they begin navigating the self-driving truck, at low speeds, through a construction zone or to a new drop-off point. 'It's not a direct system where you just turn the steering wheel and you flip a truck,' Kodiak CTO Andreas Wendel said, who explained Kodiak's autonomous system still handles much of the driving. The remote driver, using Vay's rig, tells the vehicle where to go, but Kodiak's system is still running through all of the checks to keep it on track. Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW 'Why is that important?' Wendel asked. 'Because we drive various different vehicles, from big semis to F-150s to military vehicles; they have different loads and sometimes they have a full trailer, sometimes an empty one, sometimes no trailer. And for our remote assistance personnel, it should feel exactly the same no matter what the load is, and that's what we achieve here.' Kodiak employees, all of whom have commercial driver's licenses and undergo rigorous training, use Vay's system to operate the self-driving truck in low speed scenarios such as if the driverless truck were to encounter a complex construction zone with law enforcement making hand signals. Wendel told TechCrunch the company began investigating remote-driving technology when it was awarded a contract by the U.S. Army in 2022. He said the Army needed a system that could turn to remote operators, if needed. 'They run into a lot of use cases where they can't just rely on the autonomy doing its thing,' he said, explaining a driverless military vehicle might need to suddenly change course and hide behind brush. 'Getting your autonomy to actually understand that is very tricky,' he said. Kodiak did begin to build out its own remote-driving technology, but then found Vay, a company that had already deployed its system in the real world. The partnership is the latest win for Vay, a startup that has made teleoperations technology the centerpiece of its car-sharing business. Vay got its start as a driverless car-sharing company that developed remote-driving technology that allows employees sitting in an office to pilot empty vehicles to customers. When a Vay vehicle arrives, the customer hops in and takes over manual control of the car. Customers drive themselves to their destination. The teleops driver pilots the vehicle back when the customer is finished. Vay, which was founded in 2019, has taken more than 10,000 commercial trips. Co-founder and CEO Thomas von der Ohe sees the company extending beyond its consumer-facing service. And last September, the company began to expand its business model into commercial and business-to-business services. 'I often describe it is a bit like how Amazon built AWS on the back of their Amazon success,' he said. 'This is how we want to build out that global remote driving platform.' Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnette said its branded 'assisted autonomy' system gives the company more flexibility to deliver customers' freight in a greater range of locations and scenarios. 'No matter the maturity of an autonomous driving system, there are still scenarios that will benefit from human assistance, if only as a backup,' he said.
Business Insider
11-06-2025
- Automotive
- Business Insider
Atlas Energy take delivery of two additional driverless trucks
Kodiak Robotics announced the delivery of two additional driverless trucks to Atlas Energy (AESI) and the launch of up to 24/7 driverless service, stopping only for things such as maintenance and refueling. Atlas now owns and operates four trucks equipped with the Kodiak Driver, Kodiak's advanced AI-powered autonomous solution. The new Kodiak Driver-powered trucks entered service in late May. Since launching commercial operations with driverless trucks in December 2024, Atlas's Kodiak Driver-powered trucks have delivered over 800 loads and conducted over 1,600 hours of driverless service. In April, Kodiak announced that it had received a firm commitment from Atlas to order an initial total of 100 trucks, after Kodiak achieved certain key performance and operational milestones. Confident Investing Starts Here:
Hindustan Times
09-06-2025
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
Seeing Silicon: Can a self-driving car become a weapon?
Around the block from my home, I bumped into someone from Kodiak Robotics, a company that builds autonomous driving systems for trucks. Their 18-wheeler trucks come loaded with LiDAR, radar and cameras that give full 360-degree coverage, allowing for driverless rides on the freeway. 'So, what do you do at the company?' I asked him as he showed me around a truck. 'I stop this self-driving truck from becoming a weapon,' he replied. On a deeper level, we all know that software runs autonomous vehicles, but it kind of hit me in the face when the 12-volt battery in my electric car died in the middle of nowhere. I had just come back to my car after an early morning birdwatching session. As soon as I started the car, the screen flickered with a warning about low 12-volt battery and then went dead. The car refused to start. The car even refused to lock or do anything really. Even though the main battery was 80% full, thanks to the dead little 12-volt battery, my car had just become a container parked on the road. After I dealt with half-a-day of logistics and a long ride back home in a tow truck (all electrical and mechanical), I found out that the electric car I was driving was constantly trying to connect with an online network, even when the car was turned off. All electric vehicles, and especially autonomous ones, are kind of like a big device running on battery and software. They're connected to the internet and to their company's network. Through them, many third-party apps are also connected to your car. These apps ping the car to update the data they're collecting. Perhaps that's what happened to the rental I was driving – it tried to find this network, couldn't connect as there was no signal where it was parked and exhausted its operating battery in the process. Remote hacking is one of the biggest risks of a software-enabled car. In 2015, two researchers wirelessly hacked into a Jeep Cherokee, taking control of the entertainment system, the windshield wipers and then disabling the accelerator before killing the engine. It was the most dramatic show of cybersecurity demonstration in increasingly software-dependent vehicles and led to improvement in automotive cybersecurity in the US. But this was ten years ago. Now cars are increasingly pinging and giving away information to their manufacturers and to third-part companies – even when they're not switched on. Our cars know our location as they collect GPS data, some also link payment cards to our accounts. You can open your car with your phone, call it to where you're standing in a parking lot and you can also ask it to remotely start the aircon. All these conveniences can become potential pathways vulnerabilities and back doors. Autonomous vehicles – which also had additional software and iOT devices – take this to the next level. Hackers can manipulate inputs to sensors (radar, cameras or LiDAR) that autonomous vehicles depend on and deceive the vehicle. Third-party software, firmware or hardware components can bring in unknown vulnerabilities. Then there's data privacy – that favourite bane of our existence. Autonomous cars collect a lot of our data – location, biometrics, passenger behaviour – that can be hacked and used in malicious ways. Somewhere the technology companies who are pushing these software are aware of its vulnerabilities. According to a 2024 report by Fairfield Market Research, the automotive cybersecurity market is projected to grow from US3.7 billion in 2024 to US$21.42 billion. Key drivers include government regulations, rollout of 5G technology integration and rising vehicle connectivity. Autonomous vehicles have become a normal around where I live in Silicon Valley. Through the week, as I drove alongside empty Waymo Ones (The autonomous robotaxi is now doing more than 2,50,000 rides a week in the US). More cities in the US are preparing for Waymo launches, while Amazon's Zoox and Tesla's Cybercab are ready to be deployed in different parts of the country. I started to wonder what would happen if they were all to be hacked together. The words of the cybersecurity expert from Kodiak ring in my head. I'm used to software in my devices – in my laptop, desktop, tablet, and phones. I'm also quite used to the fact that any of these can be hacked. I'm not used to my car becoming out of my control. Don't get me wrong. I love software-enabled technological in cars. Features like adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, and automatic breaking bring joy to driving. But I'm old enough to also remember hacked laptops, crashed systems. Autonomous cars basically software on wheels. And software can be hacked. Shweta Taneja is an author and journalist based in the Bay Area. Her fortnightly column will reflect on how emerging tech and science are reshaping society in Silicon Valley and beyond. Find her online with @shwetawrites. The views expressed are personal.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Kodiak Robotics to go public through merger with AACT
Kodiak Robotics, a developer of autonomous vehicle technology, has signed a definitive business combination agreement with Ares Acquisition Corporation II (AACT), a special purpose acquisition company affiliated with Ares Management Corporation. Upon completion of the transaction, Kodiak will become a publicly listed company in the US under the name Kodiak AI. Founded in 2018, Kodiak focuses on AI-powered autonomous driving systems for the commercial trucking industry. Its core product, the Kodiak Driver, is a single-platform solution combining AI software and modular hardware designed to integrate with customers' existing logistics operations. The boards of Kodiak and AACT have unanimously approved the proposed merger. The business combination values Kodiak at a pre-money equity valuation of $2.5bn. The transaction is expected to provide the combined company with approximately $551m in cash from AACT's trust account, assuming no redemptions. Institutional investors, including affiliates of Soros Fund Management, ARK Investments, and Ares, have committed over $110m in support of the transaction. Existing investor ARK Investments has reaffirmed its support for Kodiak. Kodiak founder and CEO Burnette said: 'We believe entering the public markets will accelerate our strategy to expand our existing partner relationships, provide our technology to a broader customer base, and deliver enhanced solutions across the commercial trucking and public sector industries.' Subject to shareholder approval and other customary closing conditions, the transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2025. AACT CEO and co-chairman of the board of directors and co-founder of Ares David Kaplan said: 'As an early-mover in autonomous trucking and first to deliver a commercial driverless product to a customer, Kodiak has quickly set itself apart as an industry leader in a significant addressable market.' "Kodiak Robotics to go public through merger with AACT" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
