Torc Robotics, an independent subsidiary of Daimler, has selected Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their preferred cloud provider.

The motor manufactuer firm said the tie up will enable it to process the huge volumes of real-time data required to test its new series of autonomous trucks in New Mexico and Virginia.

Torc was founded in 2005, before being acquired by Daimler in 2019, and focuses on developing level four autonomous technology, where the vehicle acts independently under specific operating conditions.

Torc said the growth in test fleet size, the number of routes, and its sensor capability, is increasing the data ingestion and analysis needs of its engineering teams in the US and Germany, and that its existing test fleet in New Mexico already generates petabytes of data.

The developer’s software collects and processes raw data from multiple sensors on its self-driving trucks, including lidar, radar and camera data, and said AWS will provide engineers with tools to design tests and run simulations using this data, including data transfer, intelligent tiered storage, managed orchestration and analytics tools.

The news comes after AWS and BlackBerry announced the development of a cloud-based software platform aimed at automakers in December.

“The race to develop self-driving vehicles generates massive volumes of data from many types of sensors,” said Wendy Bauer, director of automotive sales at AWS. “With AWS, Torc engineers have the speed, flexibility, and insights they need to design tests, run simulations at scale, and refine their experiments using a broad range of highly specialized compute instance types.”

Michael Fleming, chief executive at Torc, said: “Our next generation fleet of test trucks will help us rapidly grow our capabilities and accelerate the commercialization of Level 4 self-driving trucks.”

“Our ability to handle the data involved must be able to keep up – whether it’s for transfer, storage, or scaling our simulation capability.”

He added: “With AWS, we have a trusted solution that provides the computing scale, transfer speed, and security when we need it.”

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