Yesterday I brought you news of the Tesla Model S that was able to avoid an accident by itself, but I think Ford have gone one better with its autonomous Fusion Hybrid.
In recent tests held at Ford's proving ground in Arizona, United States the car was able to navigate desert roads with no headlights on. The American carmaker have stated that the trip would have been perilous for a human to undertake. This amazing feat is thanks to LiDAR technology which is used to scan and examine the landscape using lasers.
Normally the system is used alongside radars and cameras, but Ford have proved that LiDAR is so capable, that it can navigate the car with no light whatsoever. To achieve this, the car has 3D maps loaded into it which hold information such as the road signs, geography, topography and landmarks. The car will then use the LiDAR system to point exactly where the car is in real time. The system is able to shoot out 2.8 million laser pulses a second in order to scan the surrounding area efficiently and accurately.
“Thanks to LiDAR, the test cars aren’t reliant on the sun shining, nor cameras detecting painted white lines on the asphalt,” says Jim McBride, Ford technical leader for autonomous vehicles. “In fact, LiDAR allows autonomous cars to drive just as well in the dark as they do in daytime.”
The Ford engineers wore night vision goggles to observe the car from the inside and out to monitor its progress. Wayne Williams, an scientist and engineer for Ford described the unusal experience as he rode as passenger: Inside the car, I could feel it moving, but when I looked out the window, I only saw darkness.
“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.”