Ford uses robot drivers for durability tests

Ford has become the first automaker to use Robots to test their vehicles. The company’s engineers have developed the industry’s first robotic test driving programme, where the upcoming Transit vans are put through a series of punishing courses for durability testing at its Michigan Proving Grounds test facility in the US, piloted by autonomous robotic technology.

Developed by Utah-based Autonomous Solutions, and unlike the fully autonomous systems developed by Google and Audi, Ford’s autonomous test vehicles follow a pre-programmed course with help from on-board cameras and GPS systems, while being monitored from a central control room.

“Some of the tests we do on our commercial trucks for North America are so strenuous that we limit the exposure time for human drivers,” says Dave Payne, Manager of vehicle development operations. “The challenge is completing testing to meet vehicle development time lines while keeping our drivers comfortable.

“Robotic testing allows us to do both,” he says. “We accelerate durability testing while simultaneously increasing the productivity of our other programs by redeploying drivers to those areas, such as noise level and vehicle dynamics testing.”

The robotically driven vehicles are expected to repeatedly perform tests on torturous surfaces that can compress 10 years of daily driving abuse into courses just a few hundred metres longs and made of surfaces that include broken concrete, cobblestones, metal grates, rough gravel, mud pits and oversized speed bumps.

Up until recently, the duration of these tests are limited due to the restrictions placed on human drivers, who were allowed to drive certain rigorous courses only once a day. The use of robots allows unlimited number of repeats until Ford engineers are satisfied with the results. It also means engineers can device more challenging durability tests to build tougher vehicles.

Click play in the video below  to watch the robotic drivers in action.

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