Ford has announced its acquisition of a Saline, Michigan-based company called Quantum Signal that works on mobile robotics for a number of different clients, including the military.

With a mindset towards further advancing its goal of launching a self-driving vehicle business, Ford says that it plans on leveraging Quantum Signal’s “extensive experience” in real-time simulation and algorithm development to develop its Transportation as a Service (TaaS) platform, as well as vehicle controls that support the customer experience, functional safety and other vehicle systems.

“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,” Ford explains.

During its 20 years of existence, Quantum Signal has helped the military develop software that allowed it to control robotic vehicles from thousands of miles away using remote control. The company has also built a “robust simulation environment” where autonomous vehicle designs can be tested. The environment is still in use today.

According to Ford, Quantum Signal is well known for its ANVEL modeling and simulation environment, which military robotics programs have used to explore the performance of unmanned remote and autonomous systems.

Ford says that with Quantum Signal’s expertise, it can develop even more comprehensive simulation environments that it can use to tests its vehicles and business model to ultimately achieve further performance improvements.

Ford notes that Quantum Signal has also done a lot of work for the military in developing algorithms that help guide autonomous vehicles. And outside of the software realm, Quantum Signal is also extremely knowledgeable in robotics, as well as sensing and perception systems.

Ford says that all of Quantum Signal’s work can be repurposed to support its self-driving vehicles, to help improve their ability to analyze the environment around them.

“Quantum Signal will play a crucial role in advancing Ford’s self-driving vehicle development while also representing the company’s commitment to nurturing the talent needed to successfully deploy this technology,” Ford says.