Ford is the first automaker to experiment with Mcity, the artificial town designed by the University of Michigan to help companies test their self-driving car technologies in real-world conditions.
A driverless Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle, which merges today’s driver-assist technologies such as front-facing cameras, radar and ultrasonic sensors, and adds four LiDAR sensors to generate a real-time 3D map of its surrounding environment, hit the streets of Mcity to simulate different scenarios.
In addition to the Blue Oval, General Motors and Toyota also have top priority at Mcity because they are paying $1 million over three years.
Unlike Google or Tesla, two leaders of the self-driving car movement, most major automakers still have a long way to go before they can launch a fully autonomous vehicle, although it must be said that Ford has now been testing autonomous vehicles for more than 10 years.