Munich, June 10th, 2024 - Germany-based autonomous trucking innovator FERNRIDE announces their next generation autonomous vehicle kit. FERNRIDE’s Vehicle Kit is designed to endure extreme conditions like sub-zero temperatures, ice and blizzards in Estonia, as well as the arid climate and sandstorms in the Middle East, which enables the reliability logistics customers require. The company uses automotive-grade hardware that is easy to assemble for vehicle manufacturers and easy to service for fleet managers.
“Our customers need 100% availability and reliability in their live operations, as they cannot afford any disruptions in their daily routines,” said Hendrik Kramer, CEO and co-founder of FERNRIDE. “Prototypes are great for demonstrating functionality, but to provide a real working solution to your customers you need an integrated, industrialized system to do this for hundreds of units and years of operations.”
The process of designing this purpose-built system required careful selection of the components, rigorous testing and definition of a system architecture. This fully industrialized solution enables safe and high-performing autonomous driving, access to remote assistance and highest reliability in operations - all at scale. This milestone enables the path to series production and global deployment of the FERNRIDE-enabled autonomous vehicles.
FERNRIDE offers an automation solution for logistics centers, production facilities, intermodal and container terminals and focuses on solutions for problems that can be provided today. The company employs a human-assisted autonomy approach that combines artificial and human intelligence in a hybrid robotic system. The release of the new powerful Gen 4 Vehicle Kit will enable the upcoming deployments and scaling of the existing ones in the safest and most cost-effective way.
In this hardware generation, the company has implemented essential measures to ensure compliance with the required safety standards for CE certification — a crucial advancement for the entire industry.
The Gen 4, FERNRIDE’s next-generation autonomy Vehicle Kit leverages radars, lidars, cameras, and compute platforms from leading automotive Tier 1 suppliers. The Vehicle Kit is installed and integrated on terminal tractors that are equipped with a drive-by-wire system. FERNRIDE transforms yard trucks into autonomous vehicles using the Autonomous Vehicle Kit and proprietary software.
The company employs a team of seasoned engineers with demonstrated experience in developing safety-critical systems and has raised $60 million up until today. FERNRIDE has a proven track record with deployments at sites of high-profile customers like Volkswagen, HHLA, and DB Schenker.