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If you pull up alongside a self-driving car today, you'll probably know it immediately — bulky external sensors make most of the current models logging test miles for Waymo, Chevy and others stick out on the streets like a sore thumb. There are a few less goofy-looking models on the road with autopilot features, like the Audi R7, but they're not so prevalent.
But if you run into one of the brand-new, next-gen driverless Ford Fusion Hybrids in the coming months, you might never notice it's autonomous. It's that... normal.
Chris Brewer, the chief program engineer of Ford's Autonomous Vehicle Development program, unveiled the latest iteration of Ford's self-driving tech in a Medium post yesterday, just ahead of the car company'smobility company's planned presentation next week at CES in Las Vegas.
There are two main elements to creating the new development vehicle, according to Brewer: the autonomous vehicle platform (aka the car itself) and the virtual driver system, which is the brains behind the beast. The new model is a major step up in both categories, at least for Ford.
Most noticeably, the vehicle platform has been streamlined and pared down from the tricked-out Fusion model that has served as the poster boy of Ford's self-driving program in 2013.
Gone are the four obtrusive sensors from the roof of the vehicle; they've been replaced by two hockey-puck-size LiDAR sensors positioned much more discretely on either side of the vehicle's windshield -- sort of like a second set of side-view mirrors. With these, the self-driving system can sense objects within a range of about two football fields in every direction.
Rooftop racks, just like you might find on top of many other car models, carry three cameras, while another is housed just beneath the windshield.
Credit: ford motor companyThe "brain" that steers the car is housed in the trunk, where the equivalent of "several high-end computers" generates 1 terabyte of data an hour. Information taken by the external sensors is fed into that system, where it's compared to 3D environment maps and other computer vision processing protocols that make the car drive.
The virtual driver system is meant to be fully autonomous, at least eventually -- Ford has committed to delivering a completely driverless vehicle by 2021. Unlike Uber's fleet of semi-autonomous (and controversial) Volvos or the aforementioned autopilot system of the Audi R7 and Tesla, the Fusion isn't meant to ever need a human at the controls. Ford sees a future where it doesn't even have a steering wheel.
In order to accomplish that goal, the efforts to perfect the system through road testing in Michigan, California and Arizona will be expanded. The self-driving fleet size will be tripled to around 90 cars in 2017 with the new vehicles.
Expect an even closer look at the new Fusion at CES next week. 2016 has been a huge year for self-driving car tech — but 2017 has the potential to be even bigger.
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