self driving | Lamarque Ford

For Ford, it looks like the future may come sooner than we think. At the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, the motor company debuted a demo reel of a self-delivery system of vans and drones that they refer to as “Autolivery.”

Autolivery works with a combination of self-delivering vans and drones on call through an exclusive app. Through the app, a user can place an order for anything ranging from groceries to medical supplies. A van programmed by the app will drive to the location of the user while a drone will assist delivery by reaching areas up to thirty floors high. Rather than waste time or energy sitting in traffic, this new concept can provide all the necessities straight to the door at the lift of a finger.

In addition to the convenience, Ford also hopes to living standards with the use of automated services. By adding this delivery to the market, the company can contribute to less air pollution caused by excessive driving for groceries and other items. Drones will be able to deliver much needed medical supplies to hard-to-reach areas.

While the Autolivery experience is still ways away from being a reality, Ford is confident of their innovation. Ken Washington, Vice President of Research and Advanced Engineering, states, “Ford has at its heart a culture of disruption and innovation designed to come up with solutions that put people first to save them time, money and aggravation, and also to make our cities easier to navigate and better to live in.” It is safe to say that Ford plans to stay ahead of the curve in automation.

Shanghai-based Ford designers Euishik Bang, James Kuo, and Chelsia Lau designed the automation system for the goal of benefiting urban areas. Along with other developing concepts, Ford expects to have fully autonomous vehicles on the market by 2021.

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Self-driving vehicles are certainly not ready for the road just yet, but they are quickly getting there. So how long until we all have our own personal chauffeur vehicle? Business insider predicts 10 million self driving cars will be on the road by the year 2020. But are these vehicles ready for the hustle and bustle of rush hour traffic, the delicacy of school zones and the every so tricky decision to run through or stop short at a yellow light?

These automobiles are still in prototype phase, but don’t be disappointed, there may be cars in nearby neighborhoods with self driving features that have gone unrecognized, until now.

Parallel parking
Intelligent parking assist was first released to the public in 2003 and it quickly led to further innovations. The first system was designed to allow vehicles to parallel park themselves without any input from the driver, simply pull up to the desired parking spot and let parking assist do the rest. The success of this autonomous maneuvering feature inspired most major manufacturers to implement their own similar features into their vehicles. Parking assist can now park your car parallel, angled or perpendicular to the road. An unreleased program claims to have developed a fully automated parking assist that can be activated from a smartphone or smartwatch, allowing the driver to exit the vehicle and essentially valet park their own vehicle.

Blind spot recognition
Checking your blind spots is an essential of every day driving practice. This can make or break the success of your merging efforts, so what happens if you think your blind spot is empty and you try merging into someone else? This happens all too often, and luckily this problem has been addressed and solved. In 2007 the Blind Spot Information System was released to the public, it offered the ability to check the vehicle’s blind spots and use a small light indicator to inform the driver of a potential obstacle in the blind spot. This feature was taken a step further, and can now prevent the driver from merging lanes if the software detects an obstruction in the way. This automated feature has undoubtedly removed a significant amount of human error collisions.

Collision aversion
Blind spot collisions aren’t the only accidents vehicles can prevent automatically. Collision warning systems along with brake support have the ability to stop the car if the driver is unable to do so, or unaware of the surroundings. Sensors and monitors in vehicles have the ability to recognize if the car ahead of you has made a sudden stop or change in speed, the system can then alert the driver via audio and visual indicators, and even stop itself if the driver does not react. This has proven successful in reducing rear end collisions as well as back up collisions.

Although these autonomous vehicles have the ability to prevent some human error, they are not flawless and remain as test subjects. Having our own personal chauffeur vehicle may not be right around the corner, but our cars are beginning to drive themselves more and more with each new model release.

Ford Introduces Autolivery Concept

Self-Driving Cars In the Works