dearbon michigan american automaker ford motor company is introducing its nextgeneration fusion hybrid autonomous development vehicle just in time for ces and the north american international auto show in january the nextgen fusion hybrid autonomous development vehicle follows the companys current generation which hit the streets three years ago the new vehicle uses the current ford autonomous vehicle platform but ups the processing power with new computer hardware electrical controls are closer to productionready and adjustments to the sensor technology including placement allow the car to better see whats around it new lidar sensors have a sleeker design and more targeted field of vision which enables the car to now use just two sensors rather than four while still getting just as much data the new vehicle also evolves the two main elements to creating an autonomous vehicle the autonomous vehicle platform which is an upgraded version of the car itself and the virtual driver system the virtual driver system is designed for the car to perform what a human can perform behind the wheel said chris brewer chief program engineer ford autonomous vehicle development the virtual driver system is made up of sensors lidar cameras and radar algorithms for localisation and path planning computer vision and machine learning highly detailed 3d maps and computational and electronics horsepower to make it all work the autonomous vehicle comes equipped with highresolution 3d maps of the environment where it will be driving to make the car see these maps encompass everything the virtual driver system knows about the road before the car even starts driving locations of stop signs crosswalks traffic signals and other static things its sensors help to see the vehicles positioning on the road as well as dynamic entities like pedestrians cyclists and other cars the new vehicle evolves the two main elements to creating an autonomous vehicle the autonomous vehicle platform which is an upgraded version of the car itself and the virtual driver system the car senses with the aid of two hockeypucksized lidar sensors each generating millions of beams jut from the cars front pillars providing a 360degree view these new sensors possess a sensing range roughly the length of two football fields in every direction added brewer further three cameras mounted on two racks are installed atop the roof and a forwardfacing camera is mounted under the windshield these cameras work to identify objects and read traffic lights on the road short and longrange radar sensors adept at seeing through rain fog and heavy snow add another level of vision helping to determine how an object is moving relative to the car fords autonomous vehicle brain is located in the trunk there the equivalent of several highend computers generate 1 terabyte of data an hour more than the average person would use in mobilephone data in 45 years said brewer this new development vehicle brings ford a step closer in its commitment to offer a fully autonomous