Peloton Technology, a Silicon Valley startup providing truck platooning technology, got $17 million from some strategic investors after receiving $16M just a few months earlier in April.
Denso Intl. was the lead investor in both funding rounds. Denso is a Japanese robot maker that also provides technology and components to the global auto industry. In this latest funding, Intel and Lockheed Martin were also participants.
Peloton's technology uses vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless and radar to pair trucks to travel closely together. This creates an aerodynamic system but also a way for the trucks to communicate with each other to enable safe following, improved braking and reduced fuel costs.
Denso, besides being a provider of robotic arms for over 50 years, is also a provider of adaptive cruise control systems to the auto industry and V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle) technologies in general.
Adaptive cruise control is not technically a robot but it is robotic-like in nature and Peloton's truck platooning technology falls into that ever-growing new category of robotic-like functionality.
Continue reading