America's First Autonomous F-1 Race Will Take Place At Indy Motor Speedway Next Fall
America's First Autonomous
F-1 Race Will Take Place At Indy Motor Speedway Next Fall
by Tyler Durden Fri,
07/24/2020 - 18:25
Next fall more than 36
universities will be racing at the "Indy Autonomous Challenge" -
an all autonomous race that will be held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The
race is a 20 lap head to head contest with a $1.5 million cash prize at stake.
The purpose of the race is to help advance autonomous driving, according
to WSJ.
We'll tune in for the same reason we watch most other motor sports - to
see if anyone crashes.
Among the
participants are some of the worlds most prestigious engineering schools,
including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Korea Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology, and the Graz University of Technology in
Austria.
Teams are responsible for
developing their own "neural nets, computer vision and other artificial
intelligence systems" for the race. All teams will be using the same,
extremely badass looking Dallara Automobili IL-15 racing car, shown in the
photo below.
Matt Peak, a managing
director at nonprofit Energy Systems Network, said: “Self-driving cars have so
much potential, but their commercialization efforts are slow; the technologies
are still expensive.” He hopes the race will help further emerging technologies
in autonomous driving.
Race speeds are expected to
approach 200 mph, putting the AI responsible for driving through the test of
professional racing conditions.
Dr. Madhur Behl, an assistant
professor at the University of Virginia said: “To us, racing is a proving
ground. It’s the stress test for AI, for autonomous vehicles.”
The teams signed up last year
and are prepping for a simulation of the race in preparation for the full race
in February 2021. The simulation, built by a company called Ansys, will help
the teams test their software and will provide data for the teams to use to
improve their AI.
Ajei Gopal, Ansys's president
and chief executive, said: “We can create, with physics, multiple
real-life scenarios that are reflective of the real world. We can use that to
train the AI, so it starts to come up to speed.”
Peak commented: “Real
students are putting their minds, passions, personalities, energies into this
and working behind the scenes in ways that you could not imagine. We have no
doubt they are going to be the industry leaders in years to come.”
He concluded: “I certainly
think this won’t be the last autonomous race that we will be seeing.”
For wider adaptation, experts
still believe that autonomous driving will require faster connectivity
standards than 5G and further research. But this race could be the next step in
the process - or at the very least, very fun to watch.
We wonder how long it'll be -
or how much popularity and news coverage the event will have to get - before
Elon Musk finds a way to butt in to try and steal the spotlight...
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