AI-driven race cars test limits of autonomous driverless technology

Last weekend at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE, the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League competition took place. While each Dallara super formula car looked like an ordinary racing vehicle, there was one notable difference: they were completely driverless, guided instead by autonomous artificial intelligence software developed by eight university-affiliated teams. A suite of sensors was placed where a human driver would sit, including cameras, radar, lidar, GPS and an inertial measurement unit, along with the computing power to process the data the sensors provided in real-time.

The challenge for each team was to develop AI software that would allow the cars to perform on the track, completing the course in the fastest possible time, overtaking opponents and making strategic decisions to win races. Once cars are on the track, there is no human intervention allowed. Instead, each car makes its own AI-derived decisions about how fast to go, when to brake, what racing line to take, when to pass its opponents and what level of risk it is willing to expose itself to, which may be higher or lower than for human drivers.

The hope is that by creating a high-tech test bed with a competitive element and prize fund, driverless AI research will accelerate, leading to trickle-down technology that may become commonplace in future driverless cars, logistics infrastructure, farming and other robotic systems. “The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League is all about road safety," says Tom McCarthy, executive director of ASPIRE, part of the Abu Dhabi government's Advanced Technology Research Council, which set up the competition. “We believe that there is opportunity for leveraging the technology that has been developed in autonomous robotics and AI to develop the co-piloting capability that we can put into road cars that will prevent accidents occurring,” he says.

Whatever the outcomes, the teams involved are already excited about future applications beyond racing. “Of course, there’s a research element to this," says Lawrence Walter, team principal at CODE19 Racing, a racing team from Indiana and who are linked to Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. “There’s a lot of interesting things when you compare the performance of AI against the human that can be applied, I think, more broadly to computer science,” he says. Walter hopes the team's Maveric AI could have applications beyond racing and cars in the future. “We know that we can apply the expertise that we have to any problem," he says, adding, “maybe it is climate change. We're not sure exactly where we're focused yet, we just know that our Maveric AI is a very advanced modular system and that we can apply her learning nodes, prediction nodes and perception to a whole deal of great challenges.”

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[fallinguy]

That competition was not even that. That was a test that had backing, let's be real

[aarrodri]

I recommend watching the race summary from "stop & go F1" channel. It's hilarious 😂.

[nicookie]

This won't be the future of racing, however it will definitely be interesting to see the progress of this. To everyone saying that this isn't interesting and that it will never replace real racing, it won't, but it's interesting that something like this is even possible.

For everyone hating, grow up and realize that this will never replace racing, but instead it's an experiment pushing boundaries and limits.

[SZDPSantos]

The good news about all this is that the millions that get invested into these races, the technology trickles down to normal cars eventually.

[MrCarburator]

Imagine running reference qualifying lap humans can attempt to asymptotically approach as the limit for any given conditons. I see the funny failures were just proof that the vehicles were truly autonomous, thumbs up. Laughing at novelty is humanity old trait. Most people laughed safety belts out when Volvo introduced them. The same people who laugh today will be taking back seats tomorrow and some will be offended they got sidelined.

[chriscantplay...]

It’s a long time since I heard anyone make the claim that autonomous driving was going to reduce accidents, and this event could not have been a less opportune time to resurrect it.

[TheGrahamReaper]

Id rather watch children race go carts than watch codes race

[powerbreed]

I wouldn’t watch this shit, the driver is who the fans cheer for not some dumb robot

[davidd]

Theyre not even at the Go kart stage for speed yet. It's obviously going to get better, but introducing race chassis, engines, downforce and slicks to this was pure vanity.

[dgtldrft]

This is going to get crazy! I'm here for it. Wow.

[Kargoneth]

Rules for the racing vehicles prohibit top speeds.

[bicualexandru]

Show the full race and eliminations =))

[Illegal_Alien]

This reminds me of Battle Bots. Probably it's something we will see in the future, but I don't believe it's the future of F1 racing.

[robh_uk]

An interesting experiment in human ingenuity and AI? Certainly. The future of racing? Certainly not.

[massimorosso]

Macchine da 550cv che percorrono 8 giri per 5, 5 km di circuito.Unica sopravvissuta ha impiegato 1h😂 grazie alla stupidità artificiale😂😂

[flitsies]

This as a sport sounds really boring, not worth the effort, this as a safety thing seems to miss the point completely, many accidents on the roads could be avoided by better road signs, better road making, few pot holes.

A huge part of why there are still so many accidents on the roads is because many drivers are not held to account for their bad driving, also road rage, people who behave badly for revenge and are not held to account.

Also the way peopel view accidents with cars are seen as acceptable.

[ghostbaz]

IndyCars ain't driving their somebody using remote control clickbait

[MiG-IsGOAT]

Ok. This is dissapointing, not the teams you actually did an INSANE job on putting this up in JUST 2 FREAKING MONTHS! Congrats to you all, but the problem is with A2RL actually. Giving them just 2 months to put on an entirely new type of racing is nonsense, what you are going to recieve is that laughable race that sent everyone rolling on the floor laughing. And that is bad for the teams, for A2RL, and for this type of racing.

[jamesblair]

Wow, people are going to be lining up to buy tickets to watch autonomous cars, even better if they are electric, with fake engine sounds and shifts. I think I’ll take my inflatable girl friend.

[ivancsapod]

Definitely an IT challenge, interesting how far will this get. But, what really would be interesting, for me at least, if they would seat a humanoid robot (like a Boston Robobics type) into a racing car, and there, drive it the conventional way. I say, that would be something...