The long-term partnership is for the development and sale of ABD Solutions’ retrofittable autonomous driving systems for specific, targeted applications across Japan. It will enable the automation of existing heavy plant and quarry machinery, bringing the benefits of vehicle autonomy without the need to invest in new fleets.
KBK is one of Japan’s foremost engineering and project management consultancies. It supports leading heavy industry organisations in their move to autonomous and automated vehicles, improving plant safety and operational efficiency.
ABD Solutions is part of the AB Dynamics Group, a leading global supplier of vehicle simulation, measurement, testing and autonomy solutions. It is enabling the transition to autonomy by providing retrofit solutions that automate existing conventional vehicle fleets rapidly and cost-effectively.
This partnership will bring together extensive joint industry expertise and a deep understanding of vehicle autonomy and control. It will further develop a vehicle agnostic retrofittable autonomous system for land vehicles that can be used by a wide variety of end users.
ABD Solutions Commercial Director, Darren Carter said
This partnership will accelerate the industry’s shift to the use of autonomous vehicles. We are delighted that KBK has chosen to work with ABD Solutions on this exciting programme. The combination of both our companies’ expertise will support a wide variety of end users with their shift to autonomous operation.
ABD Solutions Managing Director Matthew Price said “KBK brings a wealth of domain expertise, which will strengthen our technical and product development teams in bringing to market a vehicle agnostic retrofittable autonomous system that will benefit the heavy industrial and mining industries alike. As businesses the world over strive to increase their efficiency and productivity, the use of automated vehicles that can work in harmony with human operators will help reduce the operational environmental impact, whilst also increasing site safety – which is of paramount importance. We are proud to be able to work with KBK to help achieve this end goal”.
Mr. Bun, General Manager of KBK's industrial systems department said “KBK is very excited and proud to be partnering with ABD Solutions, a company with great technological capabilities.
The conversion of existing vehicles, irrespective of type, to automated driving will be a critical step towards fully automated vehicles in all production and manufacturing plants. We see this as a great business opportunity for both companies.
The partnership will deepen KBK's knowledge in the field of automated driving and increase our presence in this field. We are confident that it will help to expand our business and capture new markets as the trend towards automated driving accelerates in Japan.”.
The announcement of this partnership represents an important milestone in the establishment of ABD Solutions as the go-to provider of vehicle automation solutions globally and brings closer the company’s vision of accelerating vehicle autonomy.
For more information on ABD Solutions’ retrofittable driverless vehicle solutions click here