Ford to share data to advance autonomous cars
Blue Oval hopes that sharing its self-driving research will fuel the technological leap needed for driverless cars to become a realityFord has announced it will release data from its multiple million-dollar research programs in an attempt to help fast-forward the development of fully autonomous vehicles (AVs).
The data, primarily aimed at academic communities, is claimed to include a huge amount of info gathered from LIDAR, camera sensors and 3D-mapping systems in numerous vehicles.
The data also includes seasonal variations since it was collected over more than a year from vehicles testing around Detroit. This should help future researchers cope with self-driving in snow, fog and rain.
Recorded in built-up urban areas, highways, tunnels and through road works, the data is also said to include numerous incidences of pedestrians and other road users, like cyclists.
Ford says it will continue to update the resource, which is valued at millions of dollars, and hopes it will help others create the robust and highly complex algorithms needed for safe autonomous driving capability.
The move by Ford to release its AV data follows similar steps big tech companies to release open-source software that encourages collaboration.
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