Ford has long been venturing outside of the conventional automobile industry, one of these areas that Ford’s innovation lab has explored is smart cities. A very big problem for many cities with tight alleyways being utilized for utility and garbage disposal trucks is obstructions (parked car, debris, etc.) causing massive delays, wasting both time and money. Ford knew there must be a more efficient way other than hoping alleyways would be clear for service trucks and turned to digital twin technology to help.

By creating 3D digital representations of alleyways in Ann Arbor Michigan, Ford is able to visualize in real time when obstructions were present and automatically route trucks around blockages. This project combines both event-driven architecture and digital twin technology to provide a hollistic view of alleys equipped with IoT sensors.

To learn more about this project, check out the video below: