The Robocar is designed to race at the world's first Motorsport championship for driverless cars on the same tracks as the FIA Formula E Championship.
Roborace, the motorsport championship series of the future, has finally lifted the veil off of its electric driverless racing car – Robocar. With the reveal of the Robocar, the series is one step closer to its goal of holding the first global championship for driverless cars, on the same tracks as the FIA Formula E Championship.
A big step towards realising a connected, driverless future, the Robocar has been designed by Daniel Simon, an ex-Bugatti designer, also known for his work in Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters like Tron Legacy, Oblivion and Captain America. The car weighs 975 Kgs, is 5 meters in length and 2 meters in width. Each wheel in the Robocar is equipped with a 300kW motor, making it a total of 4 such motors, which can take the car to speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour.
The six AI enabled cameras on the Robocar can perform up to 24 trillion AI operations per second
The Robocar is also a hub of sensors, which are powered by the Nvidia Drive PX2. The Nvidia Drive PX2 is an open AI computing platform which includes functions like highway automated driving and HD mapping. It also enables autonomous vehicles to use deep neural networks to process data from multiple sensors and cameras. In case of the Robocar, the vehicle houses six AI cameras, 2 radars, 18 ultrasonic sensors, 2 optical speed sensors and 5 LIDAR systems. The six AI enabled cameras on the Robocar can perform up to 24 trillion AI operations per second.
Robocars
For the motorsport championship, all teams including those of Audi, Renault and Mahindra, will have the same Robocar to work with, ensuring fair competition. Roborace CEO, Denis Sverdlov said that software engineers will be the “true heroes” of this initiative. “It’s not a competition of budget, it’s a competition of intelligence,” Sverdlov said in his keynote address at MWC.
So far, Roborace has performed demos of the Robocar using Devbots. Devbots, unlike the Robocar, has a cabin that can be be driven by humans or computers to give teams an understanding of how the hardware and technology works on the Robocar.
Devbot
We can’t wait to see these Robocars in action. Let us know your thoughts on the Robocar in our comments section below.
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Adamya Sharma
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