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Caterpillar Collaborates With Applied Intuition on Virtual Testing of Autonomous Machines

Applied Intuition and Caterpillar, the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, are collaborating to accelerate the testing of autonomous systems.
May 3, 2022

Applied Intuition and Caterpillar, the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, are collaborating to accelerate the testing of autonomous systems.

Applied Intuition offers physics-based simulation software that supports virtual testing. Caterpillar has been in the autonomy space for 30 years and recently announced the milestone of 500+ CAT® autonomous mining trucks in operation globally. The company also provides customers with the building blocks leading up to fully autonomous systems, including remote control and semi-autonomy for several applications such as dozing, loading, excavation, and compaction.

Applied Intuition’s software tools produce a virtual setting that allows Caterpillar to securely explore algorithms and test unique industry use cases—everything from pedestrian detection to pallet pickup and drop-off on construction sites—in dynamic, off-road environments.

Figure 1: Caterpillar Compact Track Loaders with a pallet load on a construction site visualized in Applied’s sensor simulation tool Spectral.

“The use of these tools will help us exponentially increase the number of situations we can virtually test and validate, which will ultimately help us get new products into customers’ hands faster,” said Karl Weiss, Caterpillar’s Chief Technology Officer. “It’s an exciting time as we scale into quarry/aggregates and construction product lines with competitive offerings.”

“We’re excited to help Caterpillar as they develop the next generation of autonomy technology,” said Qasar Younis, CEO and Co-Founder of Applied Intuition. “Autonomy is one of the strongest drivers of progress in the construction and mining industries. We’re glad that Caterpillar chose Applied to help speed up its testing and validation of autonomous solutions.”