Ford’s Autonomous Cars Show They Can Navigate in Complete Darkness

Jennifer van der Kleut

Ford Motor Company’s autonomous car program is marking off all the important checkpoints these days.

Not long after the company demonstrated how their test cars could perform well in ice and snow, and then demonstrated its new algorithm that can tell the difference between different types of precipitation like raindrops and snowflakes, Ford is showing off how its self-driving cars can navigate in complete darkness.

That’s complete darkness-no streetlights, no headlights.

How do they manage this? PC Magazine explains, “The cars are equipped with LiDAR technology and 3D maps, which work together to allow the vehicles to drive without headlights.”

Ford recently filmed a video showing off its new “Nightonomy” ability at the Proving Ground testing area in Arizona, driving along pitch-black desert roads. The test operator sitting in the driver’s seat was equipped with night-vision headgear, and Ford technicians monitored the drive on computer screens.

Ford executives say this shows the company’s incredible progress toward cars capable of fully autonomous driving, as they say the cars performed “flawlessly” in the test, even on windy roads.

Ford’s Randy Visintainer, head of the company’s autonomous car project, told Re/code magazine that the successful Nightonomy test also shows how, even if one of their autonomous cars’ cameras failed, the car could still operate safely using only 3D maps and LiDAR.

“[Testing the car] in complete darkness basically took the camera completely out of the equation. The lidar, being the active laser source, was able to illuminate the space [in close proximity]. And you can see we could do the localization, object detection and tracking [with just the lidar],” Visintainer told Re/code. “That was the purpose of the test, to show the capability to continue to operate in the absence of the camera.”

Ford said it is committed to delivering fully autonomous cars in the near future. The company told PC Magazine its next move is to triple its autonomous test car fleet, with at least 30 self-driving hybrids testing in California, Arizona and Michigan.

See video of Ford’s “Nightonomy” test below: