Ford is working on a system that can predict the movement of fellow road users

Ford has announced that it will be working on a system for self-driving cars. This must be able to predict the movements of fellow road users, such as pedestrians or other motorists. With this, Ford wants to improve the avoidance of such ‘obstacles’.

It is a partnership between Ford, the technology institute MIT and Stanford University, the automaker said. Within the project, the scientists at MIT will be tasked with developing models to predict how fellow road users will behave. For example, the movement of crossing pedestrians or that of other motorists must be made clear at an early stage.

Next, Stanford University is tasked with figuring out how to safely circumvent such obstacles on the road. The scientists must develop sensors that will enable the detection system to see around an obstacle obscuring the view. Ford indicates that the system should work similar to how motorists, for example, swerve slightly within the roadway to look past a truck, to see if it is safe to overtake.

The systems developed by MIT and Stanford should make future self-driving cars safer. It is still unclear when Ford expects to have the technology ready for use.