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All kinds of cars show up at the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed to travel the famous Goodwood Rise, but no one has ever done it like that. Roborace's autonomous racing car, called Robocar, successfully sailed the 1.16 mile unmanned human race on board, becoming the first vehicle to do so.
Roborace hopes to launch a series of races for autonomous cars with the Robocar. But until now, he has just conducted a series of high-level public tests using both the Robocar and an earlier prototype called DevBot. While the DevBot has a full set of manual controls, the only way for a human being to pilot the Robocar would be to jump to the top like Slim Pickens riding this nuclear missile in Dr. Strangelove .
Like most autonomous cars, the Robocar uses a range of sensors to steer, including radar, lidar, cameras, ultrasonic sensors and GPS. The information from all these sensors is processed by a Nvidia Drive PX 2 computer.
The car weighs 1,350 kilograms and is powered by four electric motors that together develop more than 500 horsepower, according to Roborace. Specifications have changed a bit since the original Robocar prototype debuted, indicating that the car's design is still evolving. What has not changed, is the futuristic body written by Daniel Simon, who has already designed vehicles for films like Tron: Legacy and Oblivion
Roborace plans to provide Robocars to teams as an API (application for the programming interface). All cars will be mechanically identical, but teams will be able to write their own driving algorithms. Instead of hiring a better driver, the teams will schedule one. The races should take place in conjunction with Formula E, which includes electric cars with human traction. Roborace plans to use the same circuits as Formula E, running his errands during Formula E shutdown times.
The Robocar was not the only Goodwood self-propelled car that year. He was joined by a modified 1965 Ford Mustang with Siemens autonomous driving technology and Cranfield University. But the output of the Mustang did not go as planned. The car started slowly, then zigzagged on the track. A human safety pilot had to take control several times to keep the Mustang on track. Siemens said that this disappointing performance was due to a steering problem and had nothing to do with its self-driving technology.
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