Ford Motor will be debuting its next-generation Fusion Hybrid autonomous development vehicle at CES and the North American International Auto Show in January, next year.
According to Ford, the new vehicles will be using the current Ford autonomous vehicle platform, but with increased processing power from new computer hardware.
It says that the electrical controls are close to production-ready and claims that adjustments to the sensor technology including placement will now allow the vehicle to detect what is around it.
The new LiDAR sensors on the vehicles are sleeker in design and have more targeted field of vision which let the car to use only two sensors in place of four, while collecting almost same amount of data.
The present Fusion Hybrid autonomous vehicles from Ford are the next-generation version of the vehicles, which were introduced by the company three years ago.
According to Ford Autonomous Vehicle Development chief program engineer Chris Brewer, the autonomous vehicle has two main elements which include the autonomous vehicle platform and the virtual driver system.
Brewer, in a blog claimed that the new vehicle is an evolved version of both the elements, representing a big leap in the development of the virtual driver system and computer power and sensing.
He also claimed that the new vehicles are fully autonomous Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)-defined level 4-capable vehicles which do not need human intervention and can perform all the activities that a human can perform behind a wheel.
The system includes sensors such as LiDAR, camera and radar along with algorithms for localisation and path planning, computer vision and machine learning capabilities, highly detailed 3D maps and computational and electronic support to make the processes work.
He said: “Building a car that will not be controlled by a human driver is completely different from designing a conventional vehicle, and this raises a whole new set of questions for our autonomous vehicle engineering team: How do you replicate everything a human driver does behind the wheel in a vehicle that drives itself?
“A simple errand to the store requires a human driver to make decisions continuously en route. Does she have the right of way? What happens if an accident or construction blocks his route?”
In his blog, Brewer discussed in detail about how the sensors work and complement each other and in-turn help the virtual driver system to take appropriate actions.
