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April 11, 2016 02:00 AM

Ford testing vehicles that 'see' in total darkness

Tire Business Staff
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    (Business Wire photo)
    Recently, under the cover of night, a Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle with no headlights on navigated desert roads, performing a task that the car maker said would be 'perilous for a human driver.'

    WITTMANN, Ariz. (April 11, 2016) — Recently, under the cover of darkness, a Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle with no headlights on navigated along lonely desert roads — something that would be perilous for a human driver.

    Driving in pitch black at Ford's Arizona Proving Ground marks another step in the company's goal to deliver fully autonomous vehicles that can function without driver input. The auto maker called it “an important development, in that it shows that even without cameras, which rely on light,” Ford's LiDAR system — working with the car's virtual driver software — “is robust enough to steer flawlessly around winding roads.

    “While it's ideal to have all three modes of sensors — radar, cameras and LiDAR — the latter can function independently on roads without stoplights.”

    According to an online source, LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) is a surveying technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser light.

    The company cited National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data that the passenger vehicle occupant fatality rate during dark hours is about three times higher than the daytime rate.

    “Thanks to LiDAR, the test cars aren't reliant on the sun shining, nor cameras detecting painted white lines on the asphalt,” said Jim McBride, Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford's technical leader for autonomous vehicles. “In fact, LiDAR allows autonomous cars to drive just as well in the dark as they do in the light of day.”

    To navigate in the dark, Ford said its self-driving cars use high-resolution 3D maps — complete with information about the road, road markings, geography, topography and landmarks like signs, buildings and trees. The vehicle uses LiDAR pulses to pinpoint itself on the map in real time. Additional data from radar gets fused with that of LiDAR to complete the full sensing capability of the autonomous vehicle.

    For the desert test, Ford engineers, sporting night-vision goggles, monitored the Fusion from inside and outside the vehicle. Night vision allowed them to see the LiDAR doing its job in the form of a grid of infrared laser beams projected around the vehicle as it drove past.

    LiDAR sensors shoot out 2.8 million laser pulses a second to precisely scan the surrounding environment, according to Ford.

    “Inside the car, I could feel it moving, but when I looked out the window, I only saw darkness,” said Wayne Williams, a Ford research scientist and engineer. “As I rode in the back seat, I was following the car's progression in real time using computer monitoring. Sure enough, it stayed precisely on track along those winding roads.”

    Ford www.corporate.ford.com said it has conducted autonomous vehicle research for more than a decade and is “dedicated to achieving fully autonomous driving capability, which, as defined by SAE International Level 4, does not require the driver to intervene and take control of the vehicle.”

    This year, the auto maker plans to triple its autonomous vehicle test fleet — bringing the number to about 30 self-driving Fusion Hybrid sedans for testing on roads in California, Arizona and Michigan.

    These developments, according to Ford, are key elements of its Smart Mobility plan to take the car maker

    “to the next level in connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience, and data and analytics.”

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