Since the car’s earliest days, racing has been the catalyst for innovation within the trade. That’s the aim of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL)—to drive technological innovation by way of thrilling racing motion whereas having some enjoyable within the course of.  Eight groups from around the globe will collect at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi on April 27 for the inaugural race of the sequence. Aside from the glory and the development of expertise, groups will compete for a $2.25-million money prize. And we’re all invited alongside for the experience.

A2RL is the brainchild of the ASPIRE group, this system administration arm of the Advanced Technology Research Council. The group’s mission is to hunt options to troublesome issues by mobilizing the world’s brightest minds, bringing them collectively, and fostering improvement by way of pleasant competitors. In this occasion, the issue is car security. How can we make passenger vehicles safer for occupants throughout collisions? The greatest reply is the apparent one: Avoid the collision.

“In organizing a motorsport event, the grand challenge that we’re trying to address is actually around road safety,” stated ASPIRE Executive Director Tom McCarthy. “We’ve seen huge advances in the technology of the cars that everyone drives but what we’ve not seen is a substantial decrease in road accidents and fatalities, they stay stubbornly high. We believe the big reason for that is the big gap between what the car can do and what the average driver can do. Cars are safer when you crash, minimizing the consequences with crumple zones and extensive airbags, but what we’re going to focus on is avoiding the crash in the first place. Autonomous robotics and AI can bridge that gap, between car and driver, to bring about safer outcomes on the roads.”

That’s the place A2RL is available in. Eight race vehicles based mostly on these utilized in Japan’s Super Formula sequence will compete in opposition to the clock and one another in restricted wheel-to-wheel motion. Built by Dallara, each automotive has a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder race engine based mostly on a Honda mill, related to a six-speed gearbox. In place of the driving force is a big stack of kit, together with cameras, sensors, GPS, actuators, and a drive-by-wire system. Sandwiched within the center is a pc controlling all of it. And as soon as the automotive is on the monitor, it’s as much as this “AI stack” to carry residence a win.

“The autonomous stack perceives the environment, sends the signals into the computer, and then the real challenge for the teams is to program it so it acts on all those signals and instructs the actuators to control the car,” stated McCarthy. “The challenge for the coders is to fuse all that available data and harness it to run the car autonomously. Once the car fires up, it’s on its own—nobody can interfere with it. The only outside control, either by the team or race control, is the stop instruction on safety grounds. The car must complete tasks on the track, like overtaking another car, by itself.”

While the vehicles are driverless, they’re clearly supported by the groups McCarthy talked about. It’s a very international effort, with groups comprised of members from a variety of technical and motorsports backgrounds. Germany, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland, China, Hungary, the United States, and the UAE are represented. And whereas the groups are in it for the competitors, there’s additionally a really good-looking prize for first place: A $2.25-million payout.

This is not only a flash within the pan. A2RL is already dedicated to 4 years at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, and because the course of will get dialed in, A2RL hopes to increase to different tracks in Europe and Asia. From a spectator point-of-view, a VR digicam can provide race followers an extra-special style of the motion by way of a VR expertise not usually seen in motorsports. That may additionally result in a gaming expertise additional down the highway, complementing the real-life motion in a digital racing surroundings.

For the fast future, nonetheless, the racing motion may be very actual.

“We believe the cars of the future will continue to be driven by humans, and that driverless cars or taxis will be the minority, likely in urban areas going very slowly, at least in the next decade or two,” stated McCarthy “We want to focus on active driving. So, in the real world, we don’t want to take the driver out of the car. We want to keep the driver safer. To realize the potential is to push ahead in technological advances and to let drivers see this [autonomous] technology in action to accept it.”

Visit A2RL.io for extra info.