Autonomous driving startup Mars Auto said on the 28th that it signed a "business agreement to promote autonomous driving technology for freight vehicles" with the Postal Logistics Support Center and Logisquare.
The agreement was pursued to expand autonomous paid freight transport within the postal transportation network. Mars Auto will install its self-driving device, Copilot, on the Postal Logistics Support Center's mail delivery vehicles. Logisquare will handle the overall operation of the autonomous paid transport routes. Through this, the companies will collect driving data from large freight trucks to advance end-to-end (E2E) artificial intelligence (AI) technology for autonomous driving. They also plan to improve operational efficiency and safety by cutting fuel costs by more than 10% and reducing driver fatigue during long-distance and nighttime driving.
Postal transport vehicles equipped with Mars Auto's Copilot will travel major roads connecting 22 mail sorting centers and a postal transport network of about 3,700 post offices nationwide. The actual driving data will be transmitted in real time through SK Telecom's wireless network to a national AI project training infrastructure located in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul. Copilot installation has been completed on 20 postal transport vehicles so far, and the company plans to increase the number of vehicles introduced going forward.
"Postal trucks equipped with Copilot will accumulate high-quality real driving data in various road environments," Mars Auto CEO Park Il-soo said. "The collected data will be used as a key asset for training and advancing E2E AI models, further accelerating improvements in the safety of long-distance freight transport and innovation in logistics automation."
