There was a dream not long ago that the passenger cars of the near future would drive themselves, helping make roads safer and congestion less daunting. The dream is still around, but nobody seems to care all that much if it becomes reality tomorrow or a hundred years from now. Not the same can be said about the trucking industry, which sees autonomy as a cure for the many illnesses it is faced with.
For years now, for instance, the trucking industry has been complaining about a shortage of drivers across its many segments, and that's something that autonomy could easily fix. That's why there are several companies working on coming up with autonomous trucks, from carmaker Tesla to defense contractor Kratos.

It is Kratos that brings us here today, after the company announced the conclusion of a successful, weeks-long demonstration of its self-driving truck platooning system in the forests of northern Quebec, Canada.

The tests were performed together with Canadian research organization FPInnovations, and involved a couple of class-8 tractor-trailers equipped with Kratos' self-driving system, the Leader Follower Platooning system. The trucks had to go about their routine forestry operations, but not under the complete control of humans.

For autonomous trucks to work properly, especially in areas that lack a proper GPS signal, a platoon system is needed, meaning one truck takes point and the others follow. That's exactly what occurred here, with the lead truck collecting nav data and sending it back to the follower truck.

The lead truck had a safety driver on board, but the one chasing it was operated autonomously. The trucks, which had to pull both unloaded and loaded timber trailers, worked wonderfully together, despite the many challenges posed by Canadian forests: steep grades, severe dust that impaired visibility, sub-freezing temperatures, rain, and variable lighting conditions.

Kratos seems to believe that this approach, with a human in control of the lead truck to keep in line the followers in terms of speeds, gaps, and maneuvers, is the right one, and says it's something that could be deployed with ease across multiple industries.

As said, the trucks used in the tests performed as expected, but it is unclear yet when the Kratos self-driving system could become commercially available. The defense contractor says that there were people from regulatory agencies and truck companies on site for the tests, and that follow-on deployments at other sites and in other circumstances are already being considered.

As for the actual kit that allows pretty much all existing trucks to be converted into autonomous ones capable of following a leader, it comprises a computer, navigation tech, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication systems, and sensors. Most importantly, though, this solution always involves a human which controls the behavior of the trucks platooning behind the lead one.
  
Source: autoevolution.com