At a special event in Detroit, Ford presented to the public car modification Fusion Hybrid, designed to test a new system of automatic driving.
Homing version of Fusion Hybrid looks like a regular Fusion Hybrid 2014 issue, if not look at the roof. That’s where the system is installed Lidar and several 360-degree rotating camera. In Ford believe that with their help, the car can get the most detailed topographical and visual representation of the environment.
Tandem of four devices cylindrical shape under the force output maximum detailed image in real time, allowing the car to distinguish moving (frightened animals, pedestrians and moving cars) and nedvizhuschiesya (alleys, congresses and benches) objects.
Collected information and its processing algorithms developed by researchers at Michigan State University, will help the car regardless of the mode of transportation to eliminate the possibility of traffic accidents.
During the event, Ford’s vice president of product development at Raj Nair stressed that the experimental vehicle is not self-controlled car and will only be used to test new “modern driver assistance systems.” For example, self-parking systems or automatic bypass obstacles.
Of course, Ford plans to look not so ambitious as Google’s plans or Volvo , which plans to release its self-managed road cars robots. However, Ford is by nature is not as aggressive as Google and always occupied a middle ground between the desire to innovate at a speed of technological and characteristic for the automotive industry in Detroit conservatism.
Nevertheless, the issue of self-car company Ford is to be commended, as together with other automakers and the National Road Safety (NHTSA) is working on the implementation of the concept to include all vehicles in a single network. The idea is that all the cars do not just have to interact with the environment through cameras and data processing algorithms, but also to communicate with each other with a view to joint movement coordination. If cars can synchronize and communicate with each other, the need for a system Lidar, which can advance to see an obstacle in the form of moving towards the car disappear. Implementation of this concept will also be able to solve other problems. For example, to save fuel and avoid traffic jams.
Read another very interesting article about alternative energy of the Sun, water and air.
