Roborace has brought its very first completed autonomous race car to the Paris ePrix and debuted the model in public for the very first time.
Roborace has run its DevBot test mule at a number of races during this year’s Formula E season but this is the first time the company’s completed vehicle has hit a racetrack. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t break any records at the track and only completed a single and very slow lap.
Speaking to Motorsport, Roborace chief technology officer Bryn Balcombe said that the company is still trying to perfect the autonomous racer.
“It got within a couple of millimetres of the barrier and that’s a bit too tight for the safety margin! We’re changing that line at the moment just to make sure it doesn’t get as close. The car is in its own sensing state, learning the environment. We had a vehicle following behind, but that’s just a safety mechanism,” he said.
Powering the Robocar are four 300 kW electric motors that allow each racer to reach 200 mph (320 km/h). In theory that is. Allowing the car to operate itself are no less than 5 LiDAR sensors, 2 radars, 18 ultrasonic sensors, 6 cameras and 2 optical speed sensors, all powered by a Nvidia chip.
Roborace says two completed Robocars will race each other at a Formula E event in July before 20 examples are rolled out to 10 different teams.
We go again. #Roborace #pariseprix pic.twitter.com/Jn3IbB5irL— Roborace (@roborace) May 20, 2017
Congratulations @roborace ! ? #fia #FormulaE #ParisEprix #robocar pic.twitter.com/zEDFKxanCV— Geraldine Gaudy (@GeraldineGaudy) May 20, 2017
Roborace is on track!!! #FormulaE pic.twitter.com/P7o7Bj3L9X— MiniDrivers (@OfficialMinis) May 20, 2017