Over the Air · 7 Nov 2024 · 31m
Ira Renfrew, CPO of Outrider, discusses the company's mission to automate distribution yards using autonomous electric yard trucks. He details the technical challenge of automating the connection of 'glad hand' air lines using a custom robotic arm and AI vision, and explains why Outrider focuses on the constrained environment of private property rather than public roads. Renfrew also covers the company's scaling strategy, customer adoption hurdles, and the broader industry shift toward electric and autonomous logistics.
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Engineering & simulation
Outrider built a massive database of images of glad hands and trained AI models to recognize how to connect them, enabling the automation of trailer connections.
“we've built a massive database of, uh, of images of these glad hands, trained AI models on how to connect to them, and then also design custom hardware that makes that connection, uh, to the glad hand.”
Ira Renfrew · Hear it at 8:28
Engineering & simulation
The team developed a trailer connect system using a robotic arm and custom end-effector hardware to automatically connect air and electrical lines between the tractor and trailer.
“we mount, uh, again, an off the shelf robotic arm onto the, right behind the cab of the, the tractor, and after we've, um, what we call hitched to the trailer, so connected the tractor to the trailer, then the robotic arm deploys and makes that glad hand connection.”
Ira Renfrew · Hear it at 9:58
companies scaling up
Other shows on the same ground, closest first.
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