VIDEO: Self-driving truck makes first delivery

US brewery, Budweiser, and autonomous software-maker Otto has teamed up to complete, what’s claimed to be, the first ever self-driving shipment on roads in the US.

Described as a "train on software rails” by the software engineers who created it, the pioneering beer delivery saw the autonomous truck take complete control of the driving duties for more than 200km of highway while its human driver, sat in the back of the cab monitoring its progress.

Travelling from Fort Williams, Denver, to Colorado the 18-wheeler cruised at speeds of 80km/h and, according to the driver Walt Martin, did just as good a job at piloting down the highway as any human could.

Delivering 50,000 cans of Budweiser at its destination, driver Martin took control when it left the highway and entered an urban environment.

Created by San Francisco-based autonomous driving expert Otto, the self-driving stunt saw the engineers equip a standard Volvo truck with $30,000 of hardware to enable it to drive without any human interaction.

For now, the software developed by Otto only works on the highway, but once it reaches there needs no input from the driver, unlike any current driverless tech used by car's like Tesla that require the driver to keep their hands on the wheel.

Like car-based self-driving systems the hardware used consists of LIDAR laser units and a high-precision camera that's mounted above the windscreen.

Otto, that's owned by Uber, claims it's interested in self-driving trucks because 70 per cent of all freight in the US travels by road and, currently, the app-based taxi firm says there is a shortfall of up to 48,000 drivers that's expected to grow to 175,000 by 2024.

Self-driving trucks, it's hoped, will also help cut the annual 4000 deaths killed by the 400,000 accidents involving trucks every year.

Otto says it has a small fleet of six trucks driving around the San Francisco Bay area that receive software updates weekly.

Currently, the driverless software firm say it is working on smoothing the trucks braking and accelerating and improving lane positioning. In the future it hopes its self-driving trucks will be able to predict other driver's behaviour and be able to navigate road works and bad weather.