Twenty years ago, the idea of an autonomous vehicle sounded like a crazy science fiction project. Today, however, we can easily see semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles on the streets. And this was not enough, the idea of competing these autonomous vehicles was put forward in the past years. It looks like this idea is about to come true.
A special car race will be held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday. The thing that makes this car race different from the others is that there is no one in the driver’s seat of the cars. The race will create a unique platform to showcase the way autonomous vehicle technology has come.
The $1 million prize will be awarded:
There are 9 participants in the race, which is called the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) and has a prize of 1 million dollars. Autonomous vehicles will start the race one after another, and the vehicle that completes two laps in the shortest time will win. Each vehicle has a crew. These teams are made up of students from all over the world. Each team was given the Dallara IL-15, which looks like a Formula 1 car. All of these tools are the same in terms of hardware. Therefore, the main determinant in the race will be approximately 40,000 program codes written by each team.
Vehicles reaching speeds of up to 250 km/h will have computers in the driver’s seat:
Normally, computers are located in the seat where the driver sits. Instead of a driver activating the vehicle, the engine starts to work with the command sent from the software on the computer. Paul Mitchell, CEO of Energy Systems Network, one of the companies that organized this race, says the project aims to prove that “autonomous technology can work under harsh conditions”.
One of the most impressive elements of this technology race is the speed of the vehicles. The vehicle of the team called PoliMOVE, founded in partnership with the University of Alabama and Politecnico University in Milan, can reach impressive speeds of 250 km per hour. However, when it reached this speed in the test drives, the vehicle spun 360 degrees and stopped for a while on the grass.
Stating that there is no problem in their program, only cold wheels and steering error, Prof. Sergio Matteo Savaresi said: “It was a miracle it didn’t hit anything. As a matter of fact, we have reached the limit of the vehicle. A professional driver driving at this speed would experience exactly the same thing with these wheels. ” said.
The Robocar, produced by Roborace, was the fastest car among autonomous vehicles so far. Reaching a speed of 282 km per hour, Robocar has been holding the record since 2019.
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