Why do we love car racing? For their unpredictability, the intense struggle of the characters of the pilots, high speed and instant retribution for the slightest mistake. The human factor in racing means a lot. But what happens if people are replaced by software? The organizers of Formula E and the British venture fund Kinetik, created by former Russian official Denis Sverdlov, are confident that something special will turn out. And they have every reason to say so.
Read more about AI-powered electric car racing in another article from Cloud4Y.
The topic of self-driving car racing began to be seriously discussed in 2015 due to the success of Formula E. Within the framework of this racing series, only electric cars are allowed to be used. But the companies decided to go further, putting forward the requirement for the autonomy of fireballs. Their goal is to demonstrate the possibilities of AI and robotics in sports, as well as the development of new technologies.
The idea to hold a championship with the participation of autonomous electric vehicles was supported by the company (one of its divisions is the client , which is why we decided to write this article). At the same time, it was decided that all teams would use the same chassis and transmission.
Wait what?
It turns out that each car will have exactly the same characteristics and no additional details? What is the point of Roborace then?
The intrigue lies not in the technical characteristics, but in the algorithms for the movement of the car along the track. Teams will have to develop their own real-time computing algorithms and artificial intelligence technologies. That is, the main efforts will be directed to the creation of software that will determine the behavior of the racing car on the track.
In fact, the Roborace team work scheme is not much different from the traditional "human" one. They just train not a pilot, but artificial intelligence. It is especially interesting to see how the teams will cope with bad weather and learn to avoid collisions. The last aspect is especially relevant in the light of the latest tragedy with Antoine Hubert. Theoretically, "smart" maneuvering technology can be transferred to human-controlled fireballs.
Roborace Racing
Roborace test runs scheduled for the 2016-2017 season had to be postponed due to imperfect technology. At the Paris ePrix in early 2017, the developers first released a working RoboCar prototype onto the track, and then the car was moving slightly faster than a pedestrian. And towards the end of the year, as part of the Roborace project, before the Formula E races, several demonstration runs of DevBot cars were held.
The first race, in which two unmanned vehicles participated, was held in Buenos Aires and ended in an accident when the "catching up" drone entered the turn too sharply, flew off the track and crashed into a fence.
There was another funny incident: a dog ran out onto the track. However, the winning car managed to see her, and go around. This race is already on Habr. However, the failure only angered the developers: they still decided to hold the first championship of unmanned racing cars - Roborace Season Alpha.
It is interesting that the difference in the time of passage of the route between a person and AI is 10-20%, and it is the program that lags behind. Some of this has to do with security. The Formula E circuits have concrete barriers that guide pilots and lidars. But a person can take risks and pass close to them if he feels the car well. AI hasn't been able to do that yet. If the computer calculations turn out to be incorrect even by a centimeter, the car will fly off the track and knock out the wheel.
What is planned by the organizers. Within the framework of the championship, 10 stages will be held on the same street tracks as in Formula E. A minimum of 9 teams must participate in the races, one of which will be crowdsourced. Each team will have two cars (the same, as you remember). The duration of the race will be approximately 1 hour.
What is now. So far, three teams are ready to race: Arrival, the Technical University of Munich and the University of Pisa. The other day and Graz University of Technology. The events are not broadcast live, but are recorded and published on YouTube as short episodes. Some are published on .
Cars in Roborace
Surely you are wondering who came up with the design of autonomous electric vehicles and what are their technical characteristics. We answer in order. The world's first purpose built autonomous racing car, the RoboCar, was designed by Daniel Simon, a designer who started his career in the Volkswagen empire working for Audi, Bentley and Bugatti. For the last ten years he has been on his own, designing liveries for Formula 1 cars and working as a consultant for Disney. You've probably seen his work: Simon designed cars for movies like Prometheus, Captain America, Oblivion, and Tron: Legacy.
The chassis received an almost teardrop shape, which improved the aerodynamic efficiency of the car. The car weighs about 1350 kg, its length is 4,8 m, its width is 2 m. It is equipped with four 135 kW electric motors that produce more than 500 hp, and uses an 840 V battery. Optical systems, radars, lidars and ultrasonic sensors. RoboCar accelerates to almost 300 km/h.
Later, on the basis of this car, a new one was developed, called DevBot. It consisted of the same internal blocks (batteries, engine, electronics) as RoboCar, but was based on the Ginetta LMP3 chassis.
The DevBot 2.0 car was also created. It uses the same technology as the RoboCar/DevBot, and the main changes are moving the drive to the rear axle only, a lower driving position for safety reasons, and a custom split body.
βStop, stop, stop,β you say. βWe are talking about autonomous cars. Where did the pilot come from? Yes, one of the DevBot models provides a place for a person, but both cars are completely autonomous, so they can move along the track without him. At the moment, DevBot 2.0 cars are taking part in the races. They are capable of accelerating up to 320 km / h and have a very good engine with a capacity of 300 kilowatts. For navigation and orientation on the track, each DevBot 2.0 received 5 lidars, 2 radars, 18 ultrasonic sensors, a GNSS satellite navigation system, 6 cameras, 2 optical speed sensors. The dimensions of the car have not changed, but the weight has decreased to 975 kilograms.
An 2 teraflops Nvidia Drive PX8 processor is responsible for data processing and driving. We can say that this is equivalent to 160 laptops. Bryn Balcomb, director of strategic development (CSO) Roborace, noted another interesting technical feature of the machine: the GNSS system, which is a fiber-optic gyroscope. It is so accurate that even the military may be interested. Because the technology of guiding a fireball is incredibly similar to a missile guidance system. We can say that DevBot is an autonomous rocket with wheels.
What happens now
The first Roborace Season Alpha race took place at the Monteblanco circuit. Two teams met there - a team from the Technical University of Munich and Team Arrival. The race included 8 laps on the track. Moreover, restrictions were imposed on overtaking and maneuvering in order to reduce the risk of accidents and test AI algorithms. The race took place at dusk to give it a more futuristic and colorful look.
The successful completion of the race was announced by Lucas di Grassi, Audi Sport ABT Formula E driver and former Virgin F1 team driver, who is also the CEO of Roborace. In his opinion, unmanned vehicles will create additional competition in the racing industry. βNo one will say that Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov and we lost interest in chess matches. People will always compete. We are just developing the technology,β di Grassi said.
Interestingly, some developers who had a hand in the creation of Roborace admit the possibility of "transferring the personality" of famous F-1 racers into AI. In other words, if you load all the races with the participation of one or another pilot into the database, then you can recreate his driving style. And play it in a race. Yes, this may require additional power, long cloud computing, a lot of experiments. But in the end, Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Niki Lauda will meet on the same track. You can also add Juan Pablo Montoya, Eddie Irvine, Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet to them. I would look at it. And you?
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Source: habr.com