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posted by LaminatorX on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the way-faster-than-Inni dept.

The technology to enable self-driving vehicles is maturing faster and faster these days. Google, Delphi, and others are testing their autonomous cars on the streets of California and elsewhere, taking journalists for rides and even getting into the occasional fender-bender. Audi is one of the car makers leading the charge for autonomous vehicles, and it's been demoing its technology on the racetrack. Last year the company showed off a self-driving RS7 called "Bobby" at the season finale of the German equivalent of NASCAR. Today, the company announced that Bobby's smarter, lighter sibling "Robby" has been taking to the track here in the US, and he's faster than ever.

Robby has been putting Audi's autonomous driving tech to the test at Sonoma Raceway in California, 90 minutes north of Silicon Valley. The new car is 882lbs (400kg) lighter than its predecessor, and even with the sensors and processors it's only now approaching the weight of the production RS7. Audi says it isn't just teaching the car to lap for publicity though, the point is to make sure that a self-driving car is capable of exploiting the entire performance envelope of the vehicle.

I've been told by racing fans that it is the possibility of catastrophic human error that keeps them glued to their seats. Would robotic racing take the fun out of it?

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @09:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @09:37PM (#209110)

    I wonder how they happened to choose Sonoma? One guess, it has pretty good sight lines everywhere.

    When an automated Audi can lap Laguna Seca (Monterey, CA) with the blind descent into "the corkscrew", then they will really have something.

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday July 14 2015, @10:41PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday July 14 2015, @10:41PM (#209128)

    I'm pretty sure that virtual cars have been racing most real tracks for enough years. It's not that hard to translate that part to a real car.

    • (Score: 2) by quadrox on Wednesday July 15 2015, @08:38AM

      by quadrox (315) on Wednesday July 15 2015, @08:38AM (#209265)

      In racing games the AI cars will know the track without any sensor information - it's basically programmed in. They don't rely on sensor/camera information to drive, which is what a real card would have to do even with access to GPS and a map of the track.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @09:51AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @09:51AM (#209279)

        Of course in human-driven car racings, typically the humans also have learned the track before the race. Maybe not to the detail the AI would store it, but certainly enough that they would not be surprised by any obstacle they encounter.