Ford Motor Company has announced the launch of its new Latitude AI unit, a dedicated team focused on developing automated driving technology. The company is investing heavily in this area and believes that it will be an important part of their future success.
The Latitude AI unit will be led by Ford’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Ken Washington, who was previously responsible for leading the development of Ford’s autonomous vehicle platform. He will now oversee the research and development efforts related to self-driving vehicles at Ford.
The goal of the Latitude AI unit is to develop technologies that can enable fully autonomous driving capabilities in cars and trucks from Ford as well as other automakers around the world. This includes everything from sensors and software algorithms to artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can interpret data collected from cameras, radar, lidar, ultrasonic sensors and more.
In addition to developing these technologies internally, Ford also plans to partner with outside companies such as startups or established tech firms in order to accelerate progress towards achieving full autonomy in vehicles sooner rather than later. This could include working with companies like Argo AI which specializes in building virtual driver systems for self-driving cars or Mobileye which develops advanced vision processing solutions for automotive applications among others.
Ford has already been testing its own autonomous vehicle technology on public roads since 2017 when they launched their first fleet of test vehicles based on their Fusion Hybrid sedan model equipped with various sensors including cameras and LiDAR units mounted on top of them along with additional hardware inside the car itself such as computers running proprietary software developed by engineers at Ford’s Research & Advanced Engineering division located near Detroit Michigan USA .
In addition , they have also partnered up with several universities across North America including University Of Michigan , Carnegie Mellon University , Stanford University , Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) And Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). These partnerships are aimed at furthering research into automated driving technology while providing students opportunities for hands-on experience working directly with industry experts .
As part of its commitment towards advancing automated driving technology , Ford recently announced a $4 billion investment over five years into electric vehicles (EVs) and AVs . This investment is expected to help fund projects related to both areas within Latitude AI such as researching how EVs can interact safely with AVs on public roads . It should also provide resources necessary for creating better user experiences through improved safety features like automatic emergency braking or lane keeping assistance systems found in many modern day cars today .
With this new initiative , it appears that Ford is serious about becoming a leader in automated driving technology not only within North America but globally too . By leveraging existing partnerships along side internal expertise plus investments made into EV/AV projects we expect great things coming out soon from this newly formed team under Dr Washington’s leadership here at Latitude AI !
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