Linux is used by the automotive industry

Jun 24, 2015 19:48 GMT  ·  By

Ford is trying to enter the world of autonomous vehicles, and the company is trying to play catchup with the rest of the crowd, and it looks like they are also using Ubuntu to make that happen.

Automotive companies are already working for a few years on autonomous vehicles and they've had some moderate success. Ford is just now joining the other companies, and it looks like they mean business. It's not just Google with its driverless cars, other companies are looking to make their cars smarter and able to act as a driverless vehicle in case it's required of them.

It's safe to that say that everyone is still pretty far off from letting cars running wild on highways in complete safety, but the process by which the engineers are working to achieve this is impressive. And, for the most part, they are using Linux operating systems, like Ubuntu. In case you didn't already know, Ubuntu has been implemented in Tesla and Mercedes is also using it for its autonomous project.

Linux is everywhere

Various Linux operating systems have been spotted in all kind of cool places, like NASA, Honda, Mercedes, particle accelerators, the International Space Station, and so on. It's not really a surprise that the Ford Research and Innovation Center Palo Alto is using Ubuntu to work on the cars.

"Autonomous vehicle technology is another step closer to production at Ford, moving from a research effort to an advanced engineering program; the company announced today. Ford Research and Innovation Center Palo Alto is working on the global Ford team to deliver the Ford Smart Mobility plan, which aims to take the company to the next level in connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience and big data," reads the announcement from Ford.

As you can imagine, Ford hasn't mentioned this piece of information and it's not really relevant for their plans, but you can clearly see Ubuntu in the image and it feels like it's doing more than just monitoring the car.

If you happen to spot a Linux operating system in a cool or weird place, let us know in the comments.