The age-old adage, “Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday,” is being applied to driverless cars in Roborace, a global championship series for autonomous electric race cars. Rather than fender-to-fender duels between race drivers, competitors will be programmers. The ones with the best software and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques will be taking the checkered flag. These advanced technologies could be used in future driverless vehicles that will be sold to consumers in coming years. As expected, the key challenge is collision-avoidance. If a driverless racer can avoid others racing alongside at 200 mph, the technology stands a pretty good chance on the street.

Each of the 10 teams participating in the Roborace series will be competing in identical driverless Robocars, two per team. It’s a new take on spec series racing where teams compete in identical cars, but in this case what sets teams apart is not a driver’s skill and daring, but the algorithms and capabilities of its programmers. In other words, the best computer programming skills will result in a win with less requirement for the enormous budgets or huge R&D required for most race competitions. That means college teams could conceivably compete against a team of Ferrari engineers. Racing is planned for the same tracks used by the FIA Formula E Championship series where electric-powered race cars compete, but still with human drivers.

Designed by Daniel Simon, the 2145 pound, primarily carbon fiber Roborace Robocar is powered by four 402 horsepower (300 kW) motors and a 540 kWh battery, plus the requisite electronic gear. Obviously, there is no need for a cockpit with a steering wheel, instruments, or pedals. Safety equipment like roll cages and air bags are also unneeded. This frees up space and weight in the race car for a huge array of electronics including two radars, five laser-powered LIDAR detectors, six AI-driven cameras, two optical speed sensors, 18 ultrasonic sensors, and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) positioning. The Robocar’s nose is made of special material so radar can ‘see’ through it. LIDARs are built into the wheel arches to eliminate blind spots. Computing is done by an NVIDIA Drive PX2 AI supercomputer capable of up to 24 trillion AI operations per second.

Initial testing began in the summer of 2016 using ‘DevBot’ test vehicles. These had the same internal components including battery, motor, ad electronics used in the Robocar, but were placed in the chassis of an LMP3 Ginetta race car. DevBots drove on their own, but they also had a cockpit so an engineer could sit inside and take control if required. The DevBots were quite different from the Robocar in looks and performance. During testing before the 2017 Buenos Aires ePrix, two DevBot cars raced autonomously against each other for 20 laps. This was the first-ever live demonstration of two driverless cars on the track at the same time. One successfully avoided a dog that ran onto the course while the other car crashed on a corner, showing there were clearly many challenges to be solved before race fans would see a full grid of Robocars racing on a track.

Now another milestone has been achieved. A self-driving Robocar performed a demonstration on the city streets of Formula E’s Paris ePrix on May 20, with the car negotiating its way around 14 turns of the circuit in self-driving autonomous mode. Similar demonstrations will be performed at other Formula E events during the rest of the 2017 racing season.

There remains one important question: Will motorsports fans want to see silent driverless cars racing? One pundit says maybe so…when the NFL uses robot quarterbacks. Still, progress marches on. The Robocar is taking a bold step toward a new type of racing that will provide learnings and technology breakthroughs that should help bring autonomous cars to our highways sooner than later.

Like most kids growing up in the 1960s, my first experience with an electric race car was at a slot car track as a teenager. They were fast…really fast if you used a hopped-up rewind motor capable of smoking competitors off the track.

This was followed decades later with the full-scale, real-life electric cars I witnessed competing in the APS Solar & Electric 500 at Phoenix International Raceway in 1991. They were electric conversions of one type or another, using commercially- available batteries or experimental ones with exotic chemistries, once again reinforcing that racing is where automotive technology is proved on the track, then evolved and adapted for cars on the road.

Segue to 2017, where the process continues in full force. Not only are electrics competing in FIA Formula E racing, but automakers are now signing on in a big way. Audi, Jaguar Land Rover, and Mahindra are competing with factory teams during the 2017 Formula E season and others are sponsoring race teams. It’s no mystery why auto companies are involved in Formula E since electrification is playing an increasingly important role in the automobile’s future.

Now there’s a new twist that combines electric racing with the high-profile competition in developing autonomous cars: the Roborace. Ten teams will use identical autonomous electric race cars with an eye toward earning the checkered flag exclusively through the prowess of artificial intelligence (AI) and their programming skills. No driver required.

The application of increasingly sophisticated AI in our cars is evident in the advanced driver-assist systems being integrated in new models, creating ‘smart’ cars that can respond to emergency situations faster than most drivers. In fact, the processing speed of machines versus humans was recently on the mind of Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk, when he recently shared that the processing speed of machines is so superior to humans that “over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence.”

What does that mean? Apparently, being human in a future world of AI is not enough because we are so slow. “It’s mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output,” says Musk. His reasoning is that “some high bandwidth interface to the brain will be something that helps achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem.” Yikes. I’m not the first to think ‘cyborg’ after hearing this. I’ll pass…although I will enjoy the benefits of connectivity and driver assistance systems in the meantime.

In a different and certainly more comforting look ahead, we know that plug-in vehicles are a hot item. Would you be surprised to know there are now 39 plug-in models - battery electrics and plug-in hybrids - being sold now or coming during the 2017 calendar year? That's a huge statement for electric drive and that number will certainly grow in the years ahead.

While Tesla models presently claim the greatest battery electric range at an entry point of $84,700, the new $37,495 Chevy Bolt EV stands out as the first battery electric car affordable to the masses with a driving range over 200 miles. Tesla has promised its coming Model 3 will also have a driving range greater than 200 miles at a base price of $35,000.

Without a doubt, the integration of semi-autonomous features and ‘green’ technologies will continue to grow. Welcome to your driving future!

 

Illustrating once again that technologies proved on the race track ultimately trickle down to production cars, NVIDIA is applying its artificial intelligence (AI) prowess to driverless electric race cars that will compete next year in the FIA Formula-e Roborace Championship series. Being used is NVIDIA’s DRIVE PX2 graphics processing unit (GPU) that has the computing power of 150 MacBook Pros and is the size of a lunchbox.

Ten teams will compete with identical driverless cars in the series’ one hour races. Teams will develop their own real-time computing algorithms and artificial intelligence technologies to gain a competitive edge as they strive to beat their competition.