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Team PoliMOVE celebrates on the awards ceremony for the 2023 [email protected] occasion at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. | Credit: The Robot Report
The second annual Autonomous Challenge @ CES was received by the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) group PoliMOVE from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the University of Alabama (Alabama). The competitors happened throughout week of January 1, 2023 with the ultimate competitors occurring on Saturday, January 7, 2023 on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Attendees of CES 2023 had been capable of attend and watch the occasion stay, in particular person. Thousands of followers who weren’t capable of attend the occasion in particular person watched a stay simulcast through the IAC Twitch account.
PoliMOVE’s automobile reached a prime pace of 180 mph, which is a brand new autonomous pace world file for a racetrack. PoliMOVE competed in opposition to 9 different groups from 17 universities in six nations. All of those groups had been attempting to interrupt data for head-to-head autonomous racing. The Technische Universität München (Germany) group TUM Autonomous Motorsport got here in second place within the shut race. TUM was the winner of the inaugural IAC occasion, held on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in October of 2022. PoliMOVE received the prior IAC @ CES occasion final 12 months, on this similar race monitor.
In the ultimate head-to-head competitors, PoliMOVE and TUM made greater than a dozen laps across the monitor because the passing speeds regularly elevated. On the ultimate lap, TUM spun out on flip 1 of the racetrack because it misplaced traction within the banked nook. The video under exhibits the thrilling finish of the race.
Rules of the IAC race
The IAC Competition Rules name for a single-elimination event with a number of rounds of head-to-head passing matches and a last spherical to determine the winner. The autonomous Dallara AV-21 racecars from every group took turns enjoying the roles of Leader (Defender) and Passer/Follower (Attacker) in entrance of a crowd of individuals from everywhere in the world at CES. Passes had been tried at speeds that received quicker and quicker till one or each automobiles couldn’t make a go.
In order to qualify for the head-to-head passing competitors, the IAC guidelines stated that every group needed to do a high-speed time trial with an autonomous race automotive. Six of the 9 groups that needed to take part in opposition to one another had been ready to take action at Saturday’s race.
The Team PoliMOVE race automotive is prepared for launch because it begins one other profitable day on the monitor. | Credit: The Robot Report
“Exactly 365 days later, we were so proud and excited to be back in Las Vegas for the Autonomous Challenge @ CES,” stated Prof. Sergio Savaresi, group lead of Politecnico di Milano. “Today was a major step forward in speed, in the complexity of the race, and in overcoming challenging head-to-head situations. We are very glad for this success, for the contribution of the Indy Autonomous Challenge, and for all the teams in advancing the technology of A.I. drivers.”
The PoliMOVE race management group watches the screens and motion from the group pit throughout the competitors. | Credit: The Robot Report
“We came to the world’s most influential innovation event this week, CES, to showcase to the entire technology ecosystem how this program and this competition is catapulting autonomous technologies forward,” stated Paul Mitchell, president, IAC. “We’re harnessing the power of head-to-head competition to push and test the limits of autonomous driving to further the state-of-the-art technology in safety and performance of automated vehicles, and today we snagged yet another world record.”
Nine groups from 6 nations, representing 17 universities got here to Las Vegas this week looking for to compete within the Autonomous Challenge @ CES.
- AI Racing Tech – University of Hawai’i (Hawai’i), University of California San Diego (California), Carnegie Mellon University, and University of California, Berkeley
- Autonomous Tiger Racing (ATR)* – Auburn University (Alabama)
- Black & Gold Racing* – Purdue University (Indiana)
- Cavalier Autonomous Racing (CAR)* – University of Virginia (Virginia)
- KAIST – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (South Korea)
- MIT-PITT-RW – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts), University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), Rochester Institute of Technology (New York), University of Waterloo (Canada)
- PoliMOVE – Politecnico di Milano (Italy), University of Alabama (Alabama)
- TII EuroRacing – University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy), Technology Innovation Institute (United Arab Emirates)
- TUM Autonomous Motorsport – Technische Universität München (Germany)
*Did not advance to Saturday’s last competitors.
The racing isn’t straightforward
Several of the groups struggled to get their autos onto the racetrack all through the week. Due to the prices concerned in delivery the autos throughout the nation, and the truth that virtually all the groups are unfold out the world over, loads of the event of the racing algorithms happens in simulation.
In the weeks prior to every race occasion, the group members fly into the race web site, arrange their pits, and stay in native inns, as they transition from simulation to working their code on the bodily autos. Several of the group struggled with mechanical issues that restricted their time on the monitor for testing, qualifying, and competing on race day.
The AI Racing Team troubleshoots mechanical issues with the Dallara technicians as they work to get the automobile prepared for the quarterfinals. | Credit: The Robot Report
AI Racing Team is made up of group members from the University of Hawai’i (Hawai’i), the University of California San Diego (California), Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of California, Berkeley. This group, sadly, had dangerous luck with their automobile on race day, as a result of transmission issues. However, the group ultimately sorted it out sufficient that they had been capable of compete within the quarter-finals.
The MIT/PITT/RW mechanical group members labored virtually 48 straight to restore the automobile after a high-speed entanglement with the TUM automobile earlier within the week. | The Robot Report
The different unlucky mishap throughout the week occurred on Wednesday when TUM and MIT/PITT/RW had been working some check laps collectively on the monitor. While TUM was making an attempt an overtake of MIT/PITT/RW at excessive pace, the automobile misplaced traction and steered into the engine compartment of the MIT/PITT/RW automobile. This induced substantial injury to the physique, engine, and mid-vehicle sensor bundle on the MIT/PITT/RW automobile. The consequence was a grueling 48 hours of labor to rebuild the engine compartment, in addition to the borrowing of some spare physique elements to get the MIT/PITT/RW automobile race-ready for Saturday.
Unfortunately, the group from Cavalier Autonomous Racing (CAR) didn’t qualify to race on Saturday, however the group nonetheless participated by parking the racecar of their pits. | Credit: The Robot Report
Next cease for the IAC is in Europe
From the [email protected] occasion in Las Vegas, the competitors strikes on to the subsequent occasion on the Milan Monza Motor Show in June 2023 on the well-known Monza raceway, situated close to Milan Italy. The race format can even evolve from oval racing to a highway racing format. This guarantees to be tougher for the race groups as they are going to now want to think about modifications to the driving algorithms to run on a highway course with each left and right-hand turns. It additionally would require a change in technique for figuring out the place on the Monza monitor to carry out the overtaking maneuvers.
The Dallara AV21 racecars will proceed to be the racing platform, and it hasn’t been decided but if any modifications may be made to the AV21 to organize it for highway racing. Based on conversations that I had with a number of of the group ideas, the setup of the automobile must change to stability it for the calls for of left and right-hand turns. The present setup is optimized for the physics of oval racing and high-speed left turns.
Ayoub Raji, Technical Leader of TII Euroracing, stated, “I consider the support of the MegaRide engineers on the aspects related to vehicle dynamics that we consider in the planning and control algorithms of our autonomous driving software to be of great value. The curves of the circuits have particular characteristics so it will be important to better identify the interaction between rubber and asphalt, an aspect with which MegaRide has a lot of experience. In addition, the collaboration also has long-term goals in the vision of even more complex races on guided tracks and not just oval.”
Aleksandr Sakhnevych, CTO of Megaride, stated, “Many decision-makers and automotive key- players wonder how autonomous vehicles will affect future mobility. There could not be a better occasion to get a view on it, than something highly demanding as autonomous motorsport. We are proud to continue supporting our partners in the development of reliable and potentially affordable technologies which could provide huge savings and benefits, to win races today, to move people tomorrow.”