Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center starts testing self-driving car in Pittsburgh

Uber has been testing it's prototype of a revamped Ford Fusion which has now been spotted on the streets of Pittsburgh as Uber is continually testing and updating for the next phase in its self-driving car.

The company announced in February that it will open a research facility in Pittsburgh to develop and research on self-driving cars. Uber's Advanced Technologies Center is located near the CMU campus. The company officially confirmed that the car is indeed a part of its early research efforts regarding mapping, safety and autonomy systems. 

The company’s self-driving car looked almost similar to the one that Apple has been testing earlier in San Francisco which had a bunch of sensors and multiple cameras mounted on the roof .

The company's vehicle  was initially spotted  with the words “Uber” and “Advanced Technologies Center” drafted on the sides. Uber has been rather adamant in showing its desire to bring autonomous taxis to its fleet. The plan is to make the human element obsolete and cutting down on expenditures. 

Google and Apple are currently testing out self-driving vehicle technology. Google was first tech company with self-driving cars on the road. The search giant has largely relied on Lexus and Toyota Prius vehicles for on-road testing. The search giant is also developing its own self-driving prototype. 

Google has been running the vehicles through rigorous testing at their test facilities and ensuring that their software and sensors work as they're supposed to on their fleet of self-driving vehicles. The new prototypes will drive with the same software as their existing group of autonomous cars. 

Google recently announced that its self-driving prototypes will hit streets of Mountain View, California this summer. The concept of autonomous driving cars is certainly one of the hot avenues for research and development. The company's fleet has logged nearly a million miles on the roads since they started the project. So the current batch  of cars have already a lot of experience under its hood as the data is always being analyzed and improved on.

Other companies now seem to be digging even deeper into the whole idea of autonomous cars. Nissan and NASA earlier announced a partnership that would see the two exploring and expanding development on autonomous cars. Even German car maker Audi is planning to bring its main driving setup its next-gen A8.