World’s first AI electric racer showcases driverless car future | CNN

A new robot race car series is set to get underway in 2017.

Roborace Ltd.

The planned "Roborace" series is scheduled to be contested during <a href="http://www.fiaformulae.com/en" target="_blank" target="_blank">Formula E</a> championship weekends. Organizers have commissioned Daniel Simon -- famous for his work on movies like "Tron: Legacy" -- to design the race car.

The planned "Roborace" series is scheduled to be contested during Formula E championship weekends. Organizers have commissioned Daniel Simon -- famous for his work on movies like "Tron: Legacy" -- to design the race car.

Daniel Simon

For now, this prototype, called the DevBot #1, is trialing the autonomous technology. <br /><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/18/motorsport/roborace-marrakech-cop22-formula-e/">Watch a video of it in action here</a>

For now, this prototype, called the DevBot #1, is trialing the autonomous technology.
Watch a video of it in action here

Matt Knight/CNN

The battery-powered prototype can reach speeds of 215 mph (350 kph), according to Roborace.

Matt Knight/CNN

The "Roborace" series is scheduled to start in 2017 and will see 10 autonomous cars all competing on the same track.

Roborace Ltd.

The car successfully navigated the track at Formula E's Marrakech ePrix in November. The all-electric race series will host robot races during ePrix weekends.

Matt Knight/CNN

The car has been developed by a small team of engineers and computer scientists. "With this car we have several kinds of sensors," Sergey Malygin, Roborace's Artificial Intelligence developer, told CNN. "First of all there are lasers measurements -- light-based, so we have information about the 3D objects around us."

Matt Knight/CNN

"Also we have cameras, radars, ultrasonics to get the information about other vehicles and base stations," Malygin continues. "We also have precise positioning systems and optical speed sensors."

Matt Knight/CNN

"To get this information inside (the car), process it and get a valuable understanding of what is happening around us that's something that needs a lot of computing power," Malygin explains. The raw data is then deciphered by algorithms which tells the car where the walls are and where other cars are on the road.

Matt Knight/CNN

Roborace engineer, Matas Simonavicius, says each wheel is individually powered, providing more stability and safety. <br />"One motor drives one wheel," Simonavicius told CNN. "This way you can do torque vectoring -- you can control the power to wheels much better, how it drives and the performance it gives out. It's more advanced than the conventional stability control ABS."

Roborace engineer, Matas Simonavicius, says each wheel is individually powered, providing more stability and safety.
"One motor drives one wheel," Simonavicius told CNN. "This way you can do torque vectoring -- you can control the power to wheels much better, how it drives and the performance it gives out. It's more advanced than the conventional stability control ABS."

Matt Knight/CNN

But are driverless cars a good idea? <br />"I think, yes," Simonavicius says. "What's the biggest cause of accidents at the moment? It's human error."

But are driverless cars a good idea?
"I think, yes," Simonavicius says. "What's the biggest cause of accidents at the moment? It's human error."

Matt Knight/CNN

"That's why we want to bring this car into a controlled environment where you cannot hurt any people and you can prove that it works," Simonavicius argues.

Matt Knight/CNN

"We're trying to change people's perspective of it. So they will see it at races and see it's safe and does all these cool things."

Roborace Ltd

Robot race cars are go!

Story highlights

DevBot is world's first robot electric racer

Car designed to reach speeds of 215 mph

Autonomous car races planned for 2017

Hong Kong CNN —

With its eye-catching looks and Formula One-rated velocity, this prototype ticks all the “supercar” boxes – but this is no ordinary speed machine.

The “DevBot” is an autonomous electric racing car – the first of its kind anywhere in the world, so say its developers, designed to reach speeds of 215 mph (350 kph) without anyone at the steering wheel.

A scary thought you might think, but not so say Roborace – the team of engineers and computer scientists behind it – who believe it will put people more at ease with the idea of driverless cars.

“It’s been created to show the capabilities and make people feel a bit more comfortable about autonomous cars – so we need to show that by doing some cool stuff,” Roborace’s head of PR Victoria Tomlinson told CNN.

The plan is eventually to have 10 autonomous cars all competing around a track in a Roborace series and performing stunts as part of Formula E race weekends.

MORE: ‘Magnum’ Ferrari goes electric

‘Playing chicken’

“It’s more of an entertainment series to display the capabilities of driverless,” Tomlinson says. “So we’d like almost to play chicken with them – two cars coming towards each other and stopping on a certain point (before they hit each other), having them crisscross, doing figures of eight.”

However, things didn’t quite go to plan for its first scheduled street track outing at the inaugural Formula E Hong Kong ePrix earlier this month.

There were no high-speed figures of eight, only seven engineers struggling to push the 1.1-ton car through a three-point turn outside its temporary home in Hong Kong – problems recharging the battery the reason given for the no show.

But there was plenty of other action for the 25,000 fans with tickets for Formula E’s two-day event – the curtain-raiser to the 2016-2017 world championship.

A range of technology demonstrations, promotions and computer games in the eVillage served as a prelude to Sunday’s 45-lap race around a 1.8-kilometer track in the city’s Central Harborfront area which was won by reigning world champion Sebastien Buemi.

MORE: Buemi makes history in Hong Kong

The final car, created by “TRON: Legacy” vehicle designer Daniel Simon, will sport a far more futuristic chassis with no room for humans.

“Of course, we can get a lot of information from data but there’s nothing like having a human in there to ask them how it actually feels, but the final cars won’t have space for a driver at all,” Tomlinson says.

“We are calling this a Beta season – getting people on board and getting them up to speed.”

Visit cnn.com/motorsport for more Formula E news

The Roborace team will try again at next month’s Marrakech ePrix on November 12, with Tomlinson hopeful they will be running races before the third season of Formula E ends next July.