WI Harper Group | October 5, 2020
Embark is an autonomous vehicle technology company focused on developing self-driving commercial trucks. Embark’s goal is to reach Level 4 automated driving capability on the highway, the point at which human intervention is not required under standard conditions. WI Harper has supported the company since in 2016. Embark raised its US$70M Series C in September 2019.
Embark upfitted Big Blue (truck 101) with a new sensor roof rack – here’s a timelapse of the process in this video.
The new sensor roof rack includes a number of improvements. One of the highlight is the special zoomed machine vision cameras. These – combined with Embark’s state of the art perception – expand the long-range capabilities beyond just object detection and detect the small, challenging features that identify lane lines up to 500m out. This is particularly useful because it allows trucks to precisely locate far away objects within lanes and plan complex maneuvers with much more advanced notice.
Historically, there have been no good off-the-shelf solutions from Tier 1s for computer-controlled throttle. As a result, Embark has been developing an in-house custom throttle pedal emulator over the past 18 months. This board allows them to interface to the actual throttle pedal and command a particular throttle pedal position, giving them equal control to a human driver. The throttle pedal emulator is now fully tested and Embark is in the process of rolling it out across the fleet.
Embark is also proud to announce the newest addition to the fleet, truck 301:
Truck 301 is equipped with the most advanced hardware suite including a ZF gear mounted steering actuator (D2XX). This actuator is an early sample of an upcoming redundant configuration that will support L4 autonomy. By testing its technology with the gear-mounted component today, it will be positioned to swiftly upgrade to the L4-ready system once it’s made available, providing redundant steering actuation – one of the key outstanding items required for broad AV deployment.
| About Emabrk
Embarkis building self-driving truck technology to make roads safer and transportation more efficient. We’re moving the entire trucking industry forward. Embark’s technology is already moving freight for five Fortune 500 companies in the southwest U.S. By moving real freight through our purpose-built transfer hubs, we are setting a new standard for how driverless trucks will move freight in the future. Watch the video to learn more. Embark has compiled many firsts for automated trucks, including driving across the country, operating in rain and fog, and navigating between transfer hubs. Embark is advancing the state of the art in automated trucks and bringing safe, efficient commercial transport closer every day. Embark is assembling a world-class group of engineers from companies like Tesla, Google, Audi and NASA with a professional operations team that averages over a million miles per driver. Working together, we are able to develop a system tailored to the demands of real world trucking.
| About WI Harper Group
WI Harper is a pioneer and leading cross-border venture capital firm investing in early and expansion stage companies globally. With offices in San Francisco, Beijing, and Taipei, the firm actively oversees more than $1 billion in assets under management. Since inception nearly three decades ago, WI Harper has invested in over 400 startups and has successfully experienced more than 100 IPO and M&A exits.
We look for innovative companies and visionary founders in healthcare, technology and sustainability fields where there are high synergies and meaningful value added cross selling opportunities. While our healthcare team is presently honing on bioinformatics and digital biology, our technology team is focused blockchain, big data, analytics, artificial intelligence, AR/VR, IoT, robotics, drones, autonomous driving, as well as digital media and green energy projects.
