The Ford Motor Company has established Latitude AI, a company that will focus on the development of a hands-free, eyes-off-the-road automated driving system for vehicles.
By forming Latitude, Ford will benefit from an additional team of experts with knowledge in the fields of machine learning, robotics, software, sensors, systems engineering and operations. This will support the OEM’s continued development of automated driving technology, including advancements in Ford’s BlueCruise system, which has already exceeded 80,000,000km of hands-free driving.
Latitude will investigate the use of automated driving features during unpleasant driving scenarios such as bumper-to-bumper, stop/start traffic or long highway journeys.
“We see automated driving technology as an opportunity to redefine the relationship between people and their vehicles,” said Doug Field, chief advanced product development and technology officer at Ford Motor Company. “Customers using BlueCruise are already experiencing the benefits of hands-off driving. The deep experience and talent in our Latitude team will help us accelerate the development of all-new automated driving technology with the goal of not only making travel safer, less stressful and more enjoyable but ultimately over time giving our customers some of their day back.”
Ford has hired approximately 550 former Argo AI employees across machine learning and robotics, cloud platforms, mapping, sensors and compute systems, test operations, systems and safety engineering.
The CEO of Latitude is Sammy Omari, who is also the executive director of ADAS technologies at Ford. Peter Carr has been appointed chief technology officer and will be responsible for Latitude’s product and technical development. David Gollob is president and will conduct the company’s business operations.
“We believe automated driving technology will help improve safety while unlocking all-new customer experiences that reduce stress and, in the future, will help free up a driver’s time to focus on what they choose,” said Omari. “The expertise of the Latitude team will further complement and enhance Ford’s in-house global ADAS team in developing future driver-assist technologies, ultimately delivering on the many benefits of automation.”
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