The First Driverless Vehicle to Hit US Highways Is a Truck

Driverless vehicles are coming. But the first to hit US highways this year won't be a car, but a truck.

Developed by Pennsylvania-based truck manufacturing company Royal Truck & Equipment (RTE), an autonomous truck dubbed "The ATMA" will be used on highway construction sites in Florida towards the end of 2015. The aim is to make life easier for workers on the sites, and cut down risks of accidents.

Work life can be full of dangers for a trucker as motorists can collide with trucks being used for highway construction. Because of this, construction trucks usually come equipped with "attenuators" or crash barriers. But RTE just wants to rule out the risks to humans altogether, and take them out of the driving equation.

According to RTE's website, their truck comes with an "electro-mechanical system and fully integrated sensor suite" that lets the driverless truck follow another lead vehicle driving in front of it. The truck can also be controlled remotely, and through a GPS Waypoint navigation.

Driverless vehicles are in vogue these days, with Google's one in the works, and Uber just partnering with the University of Arizona to boost its research. A recent study by information technology company Gartner, also found that we'd reached "peak hype" when it came to autonomous vehicles. This means is that while autonomous vehicles are still at an "embryonic" stage, more and more automotive companies are putting them on their "near-term roadmaps."

The safety-promoting driverless truck might just be for people in the construction industry for now. But it probably marks a step in the right direction for other companies to follow suit soon, commercialize their vehicles, paving the way for this to go mainstream.