DEARBORN, MI—Ford today unveiled the Automated Ford Fusion Hybrid Research Vehicle at its headquarters here. Ford intends the vehicle to be a rolling test bed for future navigation and safety technologies that could make it into the company's passenger cars and trucks later this decade.
In person, the car appears to have begun life as a regular Ford Fusion Hybrid, not the plug-in Energi version, as can be seen by the lack of a charging port cover on the driver's side front fender. However, there was a mysterious cord coming from the bottom right side, underneath the rear bumper, so something was clearly providing accessory power during the demonstration.
Raj Nair, Ford's group vice president global product development, took pains to indicate the Automated Ford Fusion Hybrid Research Vehicle isn't a driverless car. Instead, while it's capable of automated operation, it's assumed to be under the supervision of a human driver.
"We still believe the driver will be in the loop," Nair said, and suggested that it's not the type of thing where you send the car to drive your kid to school while you sip coffee at the kitchen table, to laughter in the audience. "It's also a research vehicle, and a platform for testing current and future technologies. Ninety-three percent of crashes are caused by human error. What if we could significantly reduce human error in driving? And what if we could reduce driver stress and workload?"
These are some of the questions the car is designed to help answer. Nair said that the car represents the culmination of a decade of research by Ford Motor Company. "We've been anticipating the DARPA Driverless Car Challenge since 2004," he said.
How It All Works
The system is pretty ingenious, and works via Lidar, which measures distance from objects by firing a laser at it and processing the reflected light. Four points of Lidar detectors sit on top of the car's roof, spinning at roughly 10 to 15 times per second, along with an omnidirectional spherical camera. Together, they assemble a 3D map that "captures a more detailed picture of the driving environment, one that's better than the human eye," Nair said.
The goal is that in a typical real-world scenario, an automated vehicle would navigate based on the real-time, Lidar-based 3D map, and adapt to the changing world around it. Using this date, the hybrid uses it to control steering, brakes, acceleration, and other systems in the car, Neir said. Meanwhile, the car communicates with the driver keeping the driver informed at all times.
Once the car rolled out onto the stage—piloted by a real driver—Ford executives shifted the view on the projection screen behind the driver to indicate what the car was currently seeing in the conference room, complete with heat maps of all the journalist bodies in the room. I moved around and confirmed it was indeed doing this, as I'm sure most of the assembled press did.
How will all of this work in the real world? Earlier this year I covered the Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid launch, and then drove one for a week as part of our Fastest Mobile Networks 2013 test, and found the car largely lived up to its fuel efficiency and performance claims. This vehicle isn't about powertrains, obviously; it's meant as a rolling testbed for new safety and navigation systems. In fact, the interior looked exactly the same, at least at first glance; I wasn't allowed inside the vehicle.
As is to be expected with a name like Research Vehicle, this particular model won't ever go on sale. It's clear Ford intends to bring some of the technologies in the car to market sooner rather than later, though perhaps not with protruding, spinning Lidar detectors on the roof, as that could prove troublesome in the local car wash.
For more, read Ford Sync: What You Need to Know.