Ford Motor Company (F) - Get Report and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute announced on Wednesday that they have started to conduct a series of tests that will provide autonomous vehicles with a method for communicating a vehicle's intent on public roads.

The test is designed to develop a means of communication that a self-driving car can have with pedestrians, cyclists, or drivers of other vehicles. 

"Understanding how self-driving vehicles impact the world as we know it today is critical to ensuring we're creating the right experience for tomorrow," said John Shutko, Ford's human factors technical specialist. "We need to solve for the challenges presented by not having a human driver, so designing a way to replace the head nod or hand wave is fundamental to ensuring safe and efficient operation of self-driving vehicles in our communities."

The test will implement simple light signals, because "light signals for turning and braking indication are already standardized and widely understood," Ford said.

Ford previously said that it wants of put a self-driving shuttle into commercial ride-sharing fleets by 2021.

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