Skip to main content

Ford upgrades virtual reality simulator

Ford has upgraded its state-of-the-art Virtual Test Track Experiment simulator with improved image rendering technologies and capabilities to study driver performance, helping in the development of safety and driver aid technologies. The company says the simulator has helped in the development of heads-up displays, drowsy driver alerts and lane departure warning technology soon to be available on the all-new Ford Fusion.
March 22, 2012 Read time: 1 min

Ford has upgraded its state-of-the-art Virtual Test Track Experiment simulator with improved image rendering technologies and capabilities to study driver performance, helping in the development of safety and driver aid technologies. The company says the simulator has helped in the development of heads-up displays, drowsy driver alerts and lane departure warning technology soon to be available on the all-new Ford Fusion.

The simulator was developed in 2001 and upgraded image rendering technologies now provide a high-resolution, digitally projected 360-degree horizontal field-of-view to test and measure driver acceleration, braking and steering performance as well as overall driver reactions in varying conditions. The company says that the upgrades will help Ford continue to develop and test active safety and driver aid technologies that warn drivers of imminent collision, drowsiness and other potentially dangerous scenarios behind the wheel.


Related Content

  • March 6, 2014
    Plug-and-play anti-collision technologies for everyone
    With an eye on the autonomous vehicle market, Soterea, a new high-tech firm in New Jersey, US, is developing plug-and-play anti-collision technologies that can make new and used vehicles safer, thereby helping to further evolve the critical element necessary to make driverless vehicles commercially viable. Soterea is the brainchild of two transportation technology experts, Eva Lerner-Lam and Alain L Kornhauser, each with more than four decades of experience in developing next generation technologies for
  • January 23, 2012
    Tunnel simulators vital for real world tunnel management
    Guillaume Ponsar, tunnel safety engineer with Egis Road Operation, writes about the advantages to be gained from the use of tunnel simulators. Major tunnel disasters over the last decade and more have shown how swiftly and badly a simple crash or fire may evolve should the wrong actions be taken by control room operators or traffic managers. Global safety issues and the reactions of operations staff have now become the principal concerns for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) service providers. As a result, n
  • September 26, 2014
    Ford Mondeo – the car that brakes for pedestrians
    The all-new Ford Mondeo will be equipped with a raft of safety features, including technology that is able to detect people in the road ahead and – if the driver does not respond to warning sounds and displays – automatically applies the brakes. Pedestrian Detection is among a raft of new features and improvements detailed by Ford which enhance the Mondeo. The system is part of the Pre-Collision Assist package that also introduces Active Braking, which can autonomously apply braking to help mitigate rear
  • July 17, 2012
    In-vehicle communication systems offer major safety benefits
    Michael Schagrin and Raymond Resendes provide an update on the US Department of Transportation's vehicle-to-vehicle programme. The US Department of Transportation's (USDOT's) Vehicle-to- Vehicle (V2V) programme, which is concerned with wireless inter-vehicle communications for safety applications such as crash avoidance/mitigation, is a major safety component of the USDOT IntelliDrive cooperative infrastructure programme.