Autonomous racing is still in its infancy, but there’s a new race car meant for the Indy Autonomous Challenge that was just revealed at CES 2024. It’s called the IAC AV-24, and it’s designed to be far more capable than the AV-21 that universities have been racing for the past few years.
In case you weren’t following along, the Indy Autonomous Challenge is a competition for colleges and universities around the world to develop and race each other in autonomous cars on real racetracks. This next generation of autonomous open-wheel cars will be taken to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Monza and the Goodwood Festival of Speed to compete for big cash prizes.
The teams/universities that enter this latest phase of competition will need to develop their artificial intelligence “drivers” to pilot the car and try to win races. This new car platform should allow entrants to push further and go faster than they could before thanks to newer and better hardware and software systems. New equipment includes a Luminar 360-degree long-range lidar system, Continental 4D radar sensors, IAC custom drive-by-wire system (allows for independent actuation of front and rear brakes), Marelli race control and real-time data interface, improved GPS and a whole lot more. The “robot” that competitors will program to drive the vehicle has better functionality, too, as the IAC says it’s vehicle chassis agnostic, allowing even more use-case applications. A new simulation tool will even allow possible entrants to train and test their AI driver without having to buy a car and to test it in the real world, opening up more possibilities for competitors.
Ultimately, this series should help push the boundaries of where we’re at with high-speed automation and lead to innovations and enhanced features in this space. In a way, it’s just like old-fashioned motorsports in the knowledge transfer from the racetrack to the road, but in this case, the knowledge gained is simply in a different form.
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