As a representative of the old car, Ford has a long history, but it has also been exploring new technologies. In April this year, Ford partnered with Google, Volvo, Uber and Lyft to establish a self-driving car alliance that will coordinate with lawmakers and regulators to make auto-driving cars safer and more socially beneficial. In the middle of this month, Ford Motor Co., together with four other investors, provided US$6.6 million in seed funding to Civil Maps, a California startup map company, to jointly develop the 3D maps needed for autonomous vehicles. Now it is working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build a small, self-driving bus.
This Ford bus is designed to shuttle students on campus and was first tested on the campus of MIT. Sound familiar? Yes, before Lei Fengnet (searching "Lei Feng Net" public concern) reported five start-up companies that built automatic driving buses, most of the buses they built were used in campuses or workplaces. At the same time, it also has a radar system and camera to monitor the traffic conditions on campus. The system can detect people walking on campus and record data. After testing for a period of time, MIT can know where and how people are walking so that the bus can be used for combat at the right place. It is worth mentioning that students or university employees who use the bus can use the mobile app to connect to the bus for travel.
In addition to the campus, Ford will also use this bus at the Ford headquarters in Dearborn to transfer employees. Ford said: The bus-connected app can provide useful information. It can be used not only to develop mobile services and applications, but also to use autopilot systems. The bus is now in beta, but as the number of tests increases, the system will become more and more optimized.
Ford’s investment in these projects demonstrates Ford’s ambition to become a leader in the automotive industry in the future. In fact, among the veteran car manufacturers, Ford is already on the road of automatic driving. Today, Ford has more than 100 R&D staff, engineers, and scientists working in Palo Alto's research and innovation center in Silicon Valley, one of the largest autonomous driving technology research centers in Silicon Valley. It also plays an important role in the Ford Smart Mobile Initiative, which aims to drive Ford's new stage of development in in-car connectivity technology, smart mobile travel, autonomous driving, consumer experience, and big data.
After the murder of Tesla, people began to worry about the safety of automatic driving. Ford also began to think about and solve this problem. In a recent self-driving car seminar, Colm Boran, Ford’s director of automatic vehicle planning made a splendid speech. He explained how Ford improved the reliability of self-driving vehicles. In an ordinary vehicle, the brake and steering mechanism of the car is connected to the vehicle actuator, so even if the vehicle is powered off, the driver can still maintain control of the vehicle. In the self-driving vehicle, the brake and steering mechanism are connected to the central computer. Once the power is suddenly cut off, the consequences are disastrous. To prevent this from happening, Ford has prepared a number of "back-up kits" for test vehicles. Once special circumstances arise, these spare parts will immediately take over control of the vehicle. This will largely avoid accidents.
It seems that Ford is getting more and more on the road to autonomous driving.
Via:Autoblog
