Ford is moving from a research effort to an advanced engineering programme on autonomous vehicle technology.
Randy Visintainer, director of autonomous vehicle development, will lead a global team to work on the advanced programme.
The transition to advanced engineering will see autonomous driving technology enter into the second of three phases in order to bring a new feature to market.
The team is currently working on making the sensing and computing technology feasible for production. Work will also focus on testing and refinement of algorithms.
Ford group vice president for global product development Raj Nair said: "During the next five years, we will move to migrate driver-assist technologies across our product lineup to help make our roads safer and continue to increase automated driving capability."
The company said the move is another step closer to production of autonomous vehicles.
Most of the engineering development work will be undertaken at Ford’s research and innovation centre in Palo Alto in northern California’s Silicon Valley.
Ford has also introduced a new vehicle camera technology that helps drivers see around corners.
