Ford is backing Velodyne and their LiDAR technology
The American car company Ford along with Baidu, a Chinese web company is going all in for Velodyne's LiDAR sensors. 150 Million dollars were invested between the two and this could give Ford an upper hand on self-driving in the future. LiDAR, according to Tech Crunch, stands for "Light, Detection and Ranging" these things are essential parts in autonomous cars.
Although Baidu is a web company, they are working on self-driving cars themselves, similar to Google. These sensors are going to be essential for self-driving vehicles. The LiDAR sensors are there to assist you while driving, eventually, they will do all the driving and work with the car to drive and push you out of the picture.
Tech Crunch reports that Ford has been in talk with Velodyne for a long time now, and this decision shows they plan to stick with them. LiDAR has been being developed since 2005 and is only getting smarter and smarter. Soon we may see these sensors included in Ford models, even if it doesn't completely drive the car for you, it will eventually.
Autonomous vehicles are popping up more and more in the news these days, and it doesn't look like they are going anywhere. Do you look forward to self-driving cars, or do you want to drive your own car? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: | Forbes |
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Via: | Tech Crunch |
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Image Credit: | routescene |
