The Next Frontier in Formula Racing: Driverless Cars

November 27th, 2015

Via: Los Angeles Times:

Imagine taking Google’s driverless car, mashing it up with Tesla’s zero-to-60-in-three-seconds “ludicrous mode,” and then pushing it to speeds of over 100 mph. Now imagine nearly two dozen of these souped-up robotic cars all speeding around on the same closed track and trying to outdo one another — without a human behind the wheel.

That’s basically what we’ll get next year in the Roborace, a high-speed stress test for 10 teams of driverless car designers who will compete as a part of Formula E, the global auto racing series that uses only electric cars.

Roborace is being billed as the world’s first race involving all-electric, driverless vehicles. With automation becoming increasingly common in consumer cars that move at much slower speeds, Roborace has the promise to showcase vehicle technology that’s even more nimble, more reliable and more capable than what’s on the market today. Just like real drivers, the cars will have to be programmed to pass each other, pull tight turns, make decisions about when and how to accelerate and, above all, avoid crashes at deadly speeds. (Of course, there won’t be any drivers in the cars to get hurt if there is a collision.)

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