Self-driving tractor trailers are rumbling down Texas highways to haul cargo at night — a major step forward for the technology.

The autonomous 18-wheelers — which still carry a driver behind the wheel — have been making the roughly four-trip between Dallas and Houston to transport food and dairy products, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Aurora Innovation, a startup, said it was able to achieve driverless trucking after dark because of its LiDAR system , which casts laser beams to see items in 3D and measure the distance to those objects. 3

The system used in the Aurora Driver is able to identify objects in the dark as far away as the length of three football fields, the company said Wednesday.

That allows the trucks to spot pedestrians, other vehicles and debris on the road

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