Ford Motor Company now wants to enter the robotics industry after closing a new $75 million contract with the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus. The giant manufacturer will soon be a non-car-exclusive company.
An employee works on an engine production line at a Ford factory on January 13, 2015 in Dagenham, England. Originally opened in 1931, the Ford factory has unveiled a state of the art GBP475 million production line that will start manufacturing the new low-emission, Ford diesel engines from this November this will generate more than 300 new jobs, Ford currently employs around 3000 at the plant in Dagenham.
According to Yahoo Finance's latest report, Ford is the University of Michigan's largest corporate donor. This means that the latest partnership is not the first collaboration of the two entities. Previously, Ford Motor Company and UM also collaborated to open the UM Ford Center for Autonomous Vehicles.
On the other hand, Ford is also planning to co-locate some of its engineers and other developers within the university's campus.
The car manufacturer also clarified that its partnership with UM is not an incubator. It added that the new collaboration is intended to widen its scope of products by extending its global research and advanced engineering network.
Ford to also have robotics!
Thanks to their new partnership, Ford can now conduct robotics access and research with UM's students from the top floor of the four-floor, 134,000 square-foot building. This also goes the other way around since the students will also have access to Ford's facilities and equipment.
The Ford logo is displayed on a new Ford car on the sales lot at a Ford dealership on March 29, 2017 in Colma, California. Ford announced that it is recalling more than 441,000 vehicles in North America at the cost of $295 million to fix problems that might cause engine fires and doors latches to unexpectedly malfunction.
Aside from this, Ford Motor Company can also drive its vehicles at the Mcity Test Facility. This will be useful since it is a simulated Main Street for testing vehicles in real-world environments. On the other hand, Ford is also the first company to conduct a car test-run at the University of Michigan's Mcity way back in 2015.
"The whole field of robotics has applications beyond the vehicle, that's very clear to us," said Ken Washington, the CTO of Ford Motor Company, via Yahoo Finance.
"We made the decision quite some time ago that we wanted to create a capability in robotics to apply to our vehicles, but also to have a broader potential application base," he added.
Ford is the first one to buy Agility's two-legged robot
Ford's interest in entering robotics was already showed back in 2020.
TechCrunch previously reported that the giant car manufacturer was also the first one to purchase Agility Robotic's Digit, a two-legged robot. On the other hand, Ford was also involved in a research project with the robotics startup since 2019. You can click here for more details.
For more news updates about Ford and its upcoming innovations, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.
