Autonomous Racing

[Papa]

I thought there may be some interest here:



The Race Is On

The biggest, boldest event in driverless development takes place this October, with $1.5 million dollars at stake. The Indy Autonomous Challenge will test 10 advanced R&D teams’ driverless vehicle algorithms at speeds up to 180 mph on the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Get an inside advance look at the engineering lessons to be learned on the track in the October 6 webinar, "Unlocking High Speed to Enable Autonomous Safety.”

Many automotive innovations have come out of Formula 1 racing and from motor sports in general. That’s why the drive to get autonomous vehicles onto the highway will benefit greatly from the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC).

Three expert engineers closely involved with the race afford you their insights:
• a race overview, chronicling the 10-month journey and the challenges encountered along the way
• how GNSS provides absolute position and the backbone for the high-speed sensor fusion aboard the 10 competing Dallara AV-21 racecars
• how LiDAR is used to provide relative localization and movement data

Join us for this free webinar on
Wednesday, October 6, 2021 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM EDT

REGISTER NOW: https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001D4CN...ZyS8o_kSOj3g==

Unable to attend the live webinar on October 6?
Register now and you will receive an invitation
to view on-demand at your convenience.

[Al_C]

This is pretty interesting. Here's my question: how do you program these cars to pass another car? How do you optimize speed and position? My understanding (which I admit is limited) of autonomous driving is that cars are programmed to follow and avoid rather than aggressively stay out in front.

I may just register for the webinar.

[Papa]

I have no idea what this "event" will actually look like, but doubt it will resemble a typical Indy race. I've been a subscriber to Inside GNSS for several years based on my previous work on GPS. There is a lot of development outside the simple navigation field that is being done using GNSS, and I find it fascinating.

Dave

[JohnK]

I remember watching this video a while back on AI and neural networks:



This seems to be the physical implementation of that idea. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Clearly they must feel they've advanced enough in the development of the algorithm to have a reasonable chance of not binning the thing on the first turn.

[Straversi]

I’d feel better getting in a robotic taxi if I saw AI race cars doing 180 around the Brick Yard.
-Steve

[Al_C]

I've been interested in AI since the late 1980's. I worked with a gentleman in CT who was doing some interesting programming in LISP. Then I was introduced to a guy in Chicago in the mid '90s who had developed a neural network system for the financial markets. I had my suspicions about how he was doing business so I walked away, which turned out to be a good thing! That said, there are many neural networks in use in the financial markets that are highly successful. Neural networks, expert systems, robotics are all different types of AI. These race cars certainly would qualify as does the video posted above. I'm not sure some of the things you see advertised in print and broadcast media today really qualify, but I'll leave that to those who really know this stuff. I registered for the webinar and look forward to it!

[JohnK]

Here's a pretty cool article and video on the upcoming Indy Autonomous Challenge:

https://newsroom.cisco.com/feature-c...icleId=2202804

[john42]

We've been at it a while now: https://robotics.mit.edu/lincoln-lab...e-teach-coding

and: https://www.ll.mit.edu/about/lincoln...ory-journal-44

Been teaching kids this for a few years now.. Was only a matter of time :-)

[GoDadGo]

Not Feeling It Papa Dave!