Topic
autonomous
Logistics Atlas grows Kodiak driverless truck fleet to 100 rigs
Atlas Energy Solutions is expanding its driverless truck fleet with Kodiak AI from 28 to 100 rigs by mid-2027, adding a second load-out point in the Permian Basin. The fleet has already hauled more than 450,000 tons of sand and set a single-day record of 176 loads, with public-road operations planned for early 2027.
Technology Aurora Races Toward Scale with New Driverless Hardware, Removing Last Observer
Aurora Innovation launched its second-generation autonomous truck hardware, designed for a 1-million-mile life and volume production. The new fleet operates without any human observer, deployed across 10 Sun Belt routes. Manufacturing partner Roush targets 1,000 trucks per year by year-end, and one customer plans to purchase 500 Aurora-powered trucks.
Technology Hyundai Robot MobED Passes World-First Autonomous Driving Test aboard Working Ship
Hyundai Motor and Kia's mobile robot platform MobED has completed the world's first onboard autonomous driving demonstration aboard a working vessel. The trial, conducted by Korean Register, HMM, and others, verified the robot's ability to navigate ship cargo areas without modifications, paving the way for safer inspections and material transport.
Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Achieves Superhuman Racing with 50% Fewer Collisions
A new study demonstrates that multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) allows quadrotors to achieve superhuman racing performance. Agents trained via league-based self-play outperformed champion humans at over 22 m/s and cut collision rates by 50% versus single-agent baselines, suggesting a new path for safe autonomous systems in shared spaces.
Manufacturing Aeva 4D LiDAR Selected by Bendix for Next-Gen Class 8 Truck Safety Systems
Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems has selected Aeva to integrate its 4D LiDAR sensors and perception software into next-generation collision mitigation systems for Class 8 mass-production trucks. The program, building on Bendix's Fusion ADAS platform, targets one of the first LiDAR-based L2+ driver assistance solutions for commercial vehicles. Roughly 300,000 new Class 8 trucks enter the North American market annually.
FAPO Framework Lets Claude Code Autonomously Optimize Multi-Step LLM Pipelines, Beats Baseline by 14.1 Points
Researchers introduced FAPO, a framework that lets Claude Code autonomously optimize multi-step LLM pipelines by evaluating intermediate steps, diagnosing failures, and making scoped changes. Across six benchmarks and three task models, FAPO beat the baseline GEPA in 15 of 18 comparisons, with a mean gain of +14.1 percentage points.
Logistics Volvo and AVI-SPL Launch Driverless Freight Operations on Texas Corridor
AVI-SPL has launched commercial autonomous freight operations between Dallas and Houston using Volvo VNL Autonomous trucks powered by the Aurora Driver. The service moves time-sensitive, high-value audio-visual electronics, including new products and end-of-life equipment for precious metal recovery. The collaboration aims to address driver shortages and capacity constraints while improving transit times and cargo security.
HOLO-MPPI Framework Promises Robust Motion Planning for Autonomous Robots Without Per-Scenario Tuning
HOLO-MPPI is a new motion planning framework that combines hierarchical policy learning with stochastic optimal control. It addresses the brittleness of end-to-end reinforcement learning and the scalability issues of manually designed priors for MPPI. Tested in autonomous driving scenarios, it outperforms baselines while maintaining real-time control.
Autonomous End-to-End SOH Prediction Service Uses Temporal-Contrastive Learning to Cut Error by Half
A new plug-and-play service architecture called TC-SOH uses temporal-contrastive representation learning to predict lithium-ion battery state of health directly from raw operational data, eliminating manual feature engineering. Across four public datasets, it reduces mean absolute percentage error by 1.91 times and root mean squared error by 2.13 times compared to physics-informed and data-driven baselines. The approach also improves model transparency through a suite of representation diagnostics, including visualization and sensitivity analysis.
New Benchmark 'AgentFairBench' Tests Whether LLM Agents Discriminate in Real Actions
Researchers introduce AgentFairBench, a reproducible benchmark for demographic disparity in LLM agent actions. Unlike traditional fairness tests that grade answers, it evaluates actions across hiring, lending, and medical triage using counterfactual matched sets. A pilot study with 864 decisions reveals that naively comparing score spreads can overstate disparity by ~2.4X; using a proper null methodology, Claude Haiku 4.5 showed no significant demographic effect.
Technology PXGEO Partners with Equinor for Autonomous Subsea Trials
PXGEO has entered a one-year agreement with Equinor to conduct autonomous subsea inspection trials using the Saab Sabertooth. This marks PXGEO's first venture into unmanned operations, with initial tests set to take place in Norway.
Logistics PepsiCo and Gatik Unveil Driverless Trucking Partnership
PepsiCo and Gatik have launched a major driverless trucking initiative, marking the largest commercial autonomous freight deployment. The partnership covers operations in Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas, enhancing supply chain efficiency.