Ford Acquires Quantum Signal: Here’s How It Advances Self-Driving Vehicle Development

By Randy Visintainer, Chief Technical Officer, Ford Autonomous Vehicles, LLC

Since its founding in 1999, a small company in Saline, Michigan has worked on the cutting edge of mobile robotics for numerous clients, including the military. Although not widely known to the public, Quantum Signal helped the military develop software that allowed it to remotely control robotic vehicles from thousands of miles away. It even built a robust simulation environment capable of testing autonomous vehicle designs that’s still in use today.

While Quantum Signal has operated in relative obscurity over the past couple of decades, its work has been on our radar at Ford for a while now. Over the past few years, Ford has been assembling a team of uniquely qualified experts in software development, simulation and machine learning from all around the world as it accelerates autonomous vehicle development — and we’re proud to announce the squad is getting even bigger and more formidable.

To further advance its goal of launching a self-driving vehicle business, Ford has acquired Quantum Signal and will make use of its extensive experience in real-time simulation and algorithm development, as well as robotics, sensing and perception technology. The wide range of the group’s work portfolio means it will be able to support Ford in numerous areas as the company develops self-driving vehicles and transportation as a service business, including software development and hardware prototyping.

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