Mike Blommer joined AVSimulation in February 2023 as an Executive Manager in North America. His primary goal is to work with the North American and French teams to grow AVSimulation’s presence in North America through his extensive experience in understanding customer use cases and listening to the voice of the customer. He was previously with Ford Motor Company for more than 27 years, most recently as the Manager of Digital Feature Design & Virtual Experiences within the Research & Advanced Engineering organization. Mike has been involved with driving simulators and simulation for more than 20 years. His driving simulation experience includes (i) managing the VIRTTEX driving simulator group to develop and conduct studies in the areas of ADAS, human-machine interfaces, and vehicle development; and (ii) collaborating with Ford’s driving simulator and simulation community to commonize on key simulation tools. Mike has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, specializing in the areas of signal processing and psychoacoustics.
The Pop in Your Job:
I am particularly interested in the ADAS aspect of AD/ADAS, and how the driver interacts with ADAS technology. I am interested in both the technology that people use, and an unofficial human factors engineer for understanding how people use and comprehend technology. The topic of ADAS simulation and the associated human factors questions have kept me excited for decades. While simulation can’t answer all questions, and there is no perfect simulation platform, I am interested in how to combine the best simulation tools to effectively study HMI and human factors questions related to AD/ADAS.