As the first brand ever to bulk develop and construct an SAE Level 4 capable vehicle, Ford will be the brand to advance the world into the new millennium of completely driverless vehicles.
The U.S. Department of Transportation utilizes a system to distinguish different levels of automation in vehicles, the levels ranging from 0 to 5. Level 4 automation is the highest accomplished automation level for a vehicle, and thanks to Ford, it is about to become our reality.
Not only has Ford developed and mass-produced vehicles capable of such nature, but they have also been studying and testing the vehicles for several years. The fleet of test vehicles now consists of 90 Fusion Hybrid sedans, a 200 percent increase just from 2017.
Ford has made colossal bounds in experimenting and researching how hazardous conditions like complete darkness, rain, wind, and snow affect the operation of autonomous vehicles.
Ford has committed almost seven billion dollars to engineering efficiency, one billion dollars to Argo AI, and four billion dollars to other autonomous vehicle efforts.
Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC
As of July 24, 2018, every aspect of Ford’s automated vehicle business has been consolidated into a new organization, Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC. By making this shift, Ford hopes to facilitate systematization, make delivery times shorter, elevate capital efficiency, and curtail inventories by expediting the administration and synthesis of automation technology throughout its industrial system.
Principally based in Detroit at Ford’s Corktown campus, Ford Autonomous Vehicles consists of Ford’s autonomous vehicle advanced engineering and research, user experience, autonomous vehicle transportation as a service network development, business development team, and business strategy team.
Having already made four imperative collaborations and investments with Nirenberg Neuroscience LLC, Velodyne, Civil Maps, and SAIPS, Ford has extended its research into radar technology, 3D mapping, and camera sensors.
The Palo Alto dedicated campus in Silicon Valley known as The Ford Research and Innovation Center will be augmented with 150,000 square feet of lab and workspace and two new buildings.
Originally established in 2015, The Ford Research and Innovation Center Palo Alto staff has more than doubled its size. It may not be too long before you see a driverless vehicle available at your local Kansas City Ford dealership.
How Autonomous Vehicles Operate
Ford’s autonomous vehicles have numerous key differences from a standard Ford sedan without a human in the driver’s seat.
In a commercial stance, the autonomous vehicles will operate within a geo-fenced area servicing a ride-hailing or ride sharing experience and will not have a brake pedal, gas pedal, or steering wheel.
The standard Ford sedan has been altered with working parts that unite the self-driving system in order to enable it to drive itself, which consist of the main capabilities of motion controls and planning as well as perception.
The position and environment of the vehicle in terms of traffic are taken in by radar, cameras, and LiDAR.
The brain of the vehicle is an elaborate computing system coined the motion planning system, which works by compounding the sensor data into a synoptic understanding of the traffic environment.
The controls system then would take over with conducting the steering, engine, and braking systems to pilot the vehicle correspondingly.
The car primarily receives power from a high voltage battery, but in an emergency, backup electrical power nets to provide the critical components with power.
Safety is important
Safety is embedded in the controls with how the vehicle essentially makes decisions. This requires the perception system to continuously feed the self-driving system so that it is able to assess and choose from a variety of driving actions and implement them.
The vehicle is able to select its actions that conduct its driving in a natural way, showing clear intent in a similar way to humans that is parallel with social local norms.
This provides other drivers around it to effectively be able to predict what the self-driving vehicle will do and how it will respond and prevent dire situations prior to occurrence.
The vehicle will analyze and categorize objects as still objects (such as a light pole) or moving objects (such as a pedestrian) all along its commute.
Self-driving vehicles also have fantastic vision during completely dark conditions. Along with the LiDAR data, radar data, and camera data, the vehicle has a clear sense of its surroundings in the complete dark.
Conclusion
Ford has taken us to a new era and has plans in the works beyond what it has already accomplished. You will soon be able to ride in a Ford Automated Vehicle.
It seems Ford has but $11B into this effort, with nothing to show for it. Basically getting a tax write off.