Land O’ Lakes Pilots Autonomous Trucking, Delivers 20 Tons of Butter
In a recent blog post, Land O’ Lakes details how they worked with Plus.ai, a Silicon Valley startup, to address “peak” butter demand for holiday cooking and baking.
This collaboration resulted in the first coast-to-coast freight trip by a self-driving truck. The 2,800 mile route was from Tulare, Calif., to Quakerstown, Penn., and the payload was 40,000 lb. of butter.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with technology leaders like Plus.ai to pilot autonomous trucks for our shipping needs,” said Yone Dewberry, chief supply chain officer for Land O’Lakes in the blog post.
The trip was three days, and there was a “safety driver” in the cab at all times. The companies report the truck successfully navigated through a variety of weather and road conditions.
The technology making this demo successful includes: cutting-edge sensors, deep learning algorithms and simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) technologies.
“This cross-country freight run with Land O’Lakes shows the safety, efficiency and maturity of our autonomous trucks,” said Shawn Kerrigan, COO and co-founder of Plus.ai. in a news release.
And Land O’ Lakes says there is more to come in how it uses technology to transform its logistics, such as Uber Freight. Here’s video of a case study from Uber Freight highlighting Land O’ Lakes:
