Ford opened its Research and Innovation Center Palo Alto at Stanford Research Park to improve its innovation in connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, and big data solutions.
With the new research center, Ford is expected to become largest automotive manufacturer research centers in Silicon Valley.
The company said that it is planning to strengthen its existing alliance with Stanford University, to deliver Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle to university engineers for next phase of testing.
The company is also working with Carnegie Mellon University-Silicon Valley to create improved embedded speech recognition systems which will support more natural language for vehicles.
The Palo Alto-based engineers are also expected to develop sensor kits to get information from bicycles and other transportation in urban areas and use the data to collect information from the vehicles.
The information is then expected to be used to provide insight into how alternate modes of transportation might be best positioned to serve future urban mobility needs.
Ford Research and Advanced Engineering vice president Ken Washington said: "Growing the Palo Alto team will strengthen our global research prowess and drive innovation needed to meet the needs of our customers in the future.
"Working together with the Silicon Valley research community will spark the new ideas, products and services that will help Ford once again change the way the world moves."
