Dean Hogle, VP of Hardware Engineering, Peloton Technology

What is the future of mobility? How will technology and design change how we move about in the world?

A new exhibition by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum— the only museum in the United States devoted exclusively to historical and contemporary design — will explore these questions. And Peloton’s platooning technology will be a part of this exhibition, “The Road Ahead: Reimagining Mobility.”

Described by the museum as “an interactive and design provocations and proposals for a reimagined streetscape within a more inclusive city,” it will include “objects and interactive experiences that allow visitors to consider the ways in which mobility impacts our lives and how design can play a critical role in thinking about the future we want to embrace.”

What a great venue to showcase our platooning technology!

Raising the Design Profile for Truck Platooning

Peloton contributed the hardware components of our truck platooning system (see below for descriptions of each component) to Cooper Hewitt. As part of its “The Road Ahead” exhibition, the museum will place the Peloton hardware in the appropriate sites on a full-size line drawing of a truck.

As a pioneer of platooning technology, we were honored and delighted to contribute our products to this design exhibition. Peloton takes design seriously, and for us design takes multiple forms, including:

• Platooning software design that has safety as its dominant design mandate.
• Design of the user interface so that professional truck drivers are empowered to make decisions and can operate the system easily.
• Design of the hardware look and feel to co-exist harmoniously with the driver and so that platooning is something truck makers want to incorporate into their vehicles.

While we believe that Peloton was invited to contribute to Cooper Hewitt’s “The Road Ahead” exhibition based primarily on our functional technology design, we are also very proud of the visual appeal of the industrial design of our platooning components.

All the hardware components in the Peloton platooning system share a consistent look and feel. They are all covered in a textured black plastic with a thin ‘Peloton blue’ line, for a subtle yet distinctively branded appearance.

The Peloton Hardware in the Cooper Hewitt Exhibition

Here’s what the Peloton team sent to Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum:

• Peloton ECU (Electronics Control Unit). The ECU contains microprocessors (System on a Chip, or SOC), memory, radios (LTE, GPS, and DSRC), and environmental control logic that interfaces with truck control logic to support platooning.
• Display and Driver Control. Mounted inside the cab of a truck, a 7-inch color display provides drivers with platoon status, instructions, and forward-facing video. In addition to the display, physical switches enable platoon control.
• Camera. Mounted on the truck’s window, the Peloton camera is used to send a view of the road ahead of the lead truck to the follow driver’s display. This enables the follow driver to have an awareness of the road ahead, including traffic conditions and road features such as entry and exit ramps.
• Speaker. A dedicated speaker, mounted behind the driver’s head on the back inside wall of the cab, lets drivers hear alerts and use voice communication with their platooning partners.

Additional Peloton Hardware Used in Platooning

• DSRC Antennas. Built using Peloton’s own intellectual property (IP), antennas are mounted in truck mirrors, two each in both side mirrors. A radio frequency (RF) signal from the antennas transmits via line of sight between platooning trucks to enable vehicle-to-vehicle communications.
• LTE and GPS Antennas. The Peloton platooning system includes an LTE antenna and a GPS antenna, connected to the back of the truck’s cab on the outside. Hermetically sealed for outdoor use, the LTE antenna supports communication to the cloud and GPS antenna supports truck positioning and gap control between platooning trucks.

“The Road Ahead: Reimagining Mobility” is scheduled to run at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum at 2 East 91st Street in Manhattan, New York City, from December 14, 2018, through March 31, 2019.