Driverless racing is real, terrible, and strangely exciting
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Until the AI starts behaving like Legion - yes, AI route tracing and traction control is soulless.
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I watched this when it happened on Youtube, and it was awful. The biggest problem it was marketed and talked up as if an actual race would happen. They even billed it as "the ultimate autonomous race."
It was a test, and a test that went pretty badly. If they said up front "this is a test session", that's totally fine. Tests can be interesting. But when you sell a race and then don't deliver any racing (and don't kid yourself, this had about as much racing as the Monaco Grand Prix), its a problem.
Most of these teams looked not even remotely ready for an actual race and its clear there is a long way to go. They need to really be more honest about what they're offering until these cars can actually race each other.
It was a test, and a test that went pretty badly. If they said up front "this is a test session", that's totally fine. Tests can be interesting. But when you sell a race and then don't deliver any racing (and don't kid yourself, this had about as much racing as the Monaco Grand Prix), its a problem.
Most of these teams looked not even remotely ready for an actual race and its clear there is a long way to go. They need to really be more honest about what they're offering until these cars can actually race each other.
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If you're a Twilight Zone fan, there was an episode that dealt with a future in which the sport of boxing was done through robots, where it was now illegal for humans to engage in the sport. Then there was that Hugh Jackson movie where he controlled the robot through shadow boxing.
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I was going to say, if you're looking at autonomous race cars it doesn't really seem like it makes sense to start at full-size human-scale cars; glad to hear there are some other ideas out there.
IMO something like go-kart size cars on temporary tracks you can fit in a stadium could be pretty interesting as a series; it doesn't really make sense to try to compete head-on with driver-centric series, it would make more sense to lean into the advantage of a driverless series (lack of safety risk), and that suggests keeping the cost of the individual vehicles down rather than going with expensive full-size race cars.
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Keith Tanner
Ars Tribunus Militum
Because they look like F1 cars to a casual observer, and to much of the world that is the pinnacle of motorsport.
I think this is a really interesting experiment. It will be quite some time until the robots can beat a human, but I think the racing will get fun to watch fairly quickly. I mean, I enjoy watching my Roomba figure out how to deal with an obstacle, how could I not enjoy this?
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To be fair, they weren't using sophisticated driving AI. I imagine that once they get properly trained AI to drive them the results will be very different.
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There's a go-kart version of "Mario Kart" already available. Just need to remove the driver and add the autonomous driving capability, and you'll have everything in place. https://www.battlekart.com/en/
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Hugh Jackman and the movie is called Real Steel, now showing on Netflix.
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And why start with full-sized vehicles? Use scaled down version of the cars to perfect the software.
John Cage's 4'33
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To race in F1 you need to first build a career in lower series with good enough results to qualify for a FIA Super License.
And then every race weekend you need to be able to put your car within 7% of the pole position time to be allowed to start the race on Sunday.
Maldonado and Stroll are still very very above average drivers.
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No action shots of the race?
I was getting a bit weirded out how none of the tires in the static pictures were touching the pavement... Until I noticed a little bit of jackstand under one of the cars, I had thought the pics were faked.
I was getting a bit weirded out how none of the tires in the static pictures were touching the pavement... Until I noticed a little bit of jackstand under one of the cars, I had thought the pics were faked.
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I am aware of that. It was a joke. But one could also argue that each of those drivers didn't get into F1 because they were the best options.
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Last I checked the video was on Youtube. The "action" was mostly cars following each other, cars stopping because the car in front of them stopped, and such. It was what you'd expect from an early test of the tech.
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Would’ve been a lot more exciting if they had painted half of the cars red and used the other half to run Tesla’s driving software
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I'm waiting for the wealthy to battle giant violent bipedal bots instead. Maybe with organic parts excluding the brain to make it real exciting....
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Statistical
Ars Legatus Legionis
If it is like anything else it will go from can't compete to can beat most non-pro drivers to can challenge pro drivers but rarely win to battling it out with the best of drivers to humans can rarely beat it, to no human ever beats it again.
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So I guess there's still a long way to go before we can install weapon systems on these cars to make the race more interesting.
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Words that are technically true, yet I never expected to read about a driver nicknamed The Russian Torpedo!
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R/C racing has existed for a long time.
1/12 scale
1/10 scale
1/8 scale
1/4 scale
I don't know how feasible it would be to drive to drive a full size one. Would you drive it based on internal cameras or sit on up high and drive it like a smaller one?
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What's funny, is while this race was such a big disappointment, there are, Ukraine is apparently mass-producing AI driven vision based kamikaze drones right now.
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I think drone car races would be more fun. I mean real drivers sitting inside a nice air conditioned control room with a steering wheel, shifter, pedals, gauges, etc. operating a real fast car out on the hot noisy track. Kids could have go kart races like that and mom's would approve because it's safe. Although dad's might not want to pay the freight on such a pricey game. Unless, they were into it, too.
I get this article is about autonomous, btw. I just think drone cars would be cool.
I get this article is about autonomous, btw. I just think drone cars would be cool.
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This is essentially Drone Racing (lookup DRL), and you're correct that being on-site minimizes lag issues. I think it could be interesting, but a car on a flat track isn't quite as exciting as an angry flying blender ripping through a 3D obstacle course. But, hey, I'm all for some variety in the space!
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Mad Max races, automated. Live machine guns, rockets, spears, what have you.
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Sure but like I said full size. The cameras would need to be situated in a way that a remote driver in a sim racer type setup could use a vr helmet to simulate the view from the actual cockpit
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that sounds like a waste of money. some sort of electromagnetic pulse that (temp) disables the electronics only, if that's a thing. obviously there's still the "unexpected" crashes from sudden slow downs to fix, but far cheaper than blowing shit up.
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The junior series is effectively the Formula Student/Formula SAE autonomous event
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The cars are all set up and tuned by a team supplied by TII, teams are not permitted to touch the hardware, to keep them all as fair as possible. And, let's be honest, to give them a realistic chance of running a Super Formula car when they're a programming department from a universit.y
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it did get a mention! TII participated in Indy Autonomous Challenge and that's where they got the idea for what they wanted to do, including the contact with Dallara.
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"A less morally ambiguous use case is the potential for maritime and aviation collision avoidance, something the logistics industry is very interested in."
A collision avoidance system could be adapted to collision seeking.
Ukraine could use a drone that was immune to jamming.
Might have to have pretty robust IFF, since IFF spoofing would be the countermeasure.
A collision avoidance system could be adapted to collision seeking.
Ukraine could use a drone that was immune to jamming.
Might have to have pretty robust IFF, since IFF spoofing would be the countermeasure.
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Done.
Many Ukrainian drones have been disabled by Russian jamming
Their latest models navigate by sight alone
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There are a few youtube videos. One I watched was a one minute hype from ADARL called "A2RL Final Race Highlights" which was not anything like final race highlights. The other I watched was from an F1 biased site. This is where I learned that the actual "race" was only 8 laps. The first two laps were under some kind of virtual lead car lap, rolling around, waiting for the fourth of four cars to catch up for the actual "start" of the "race". Even though the author of this article mentions several times the chassis is a Super Formula, I still couldn't tell if these were ICE or EV. Chassis is different in my mind than powertrain, and it wasn't until I was a few minutes into the second youtube video and did a search on Super Formula that I was sure these are ICE engines.
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I have the utmost respect for the author of this article. While I haven't read her full article on Medium, it looks very informative. However, I do have a few comments. First, there was no mention of what these cars used for power. I do not assume that a Super Formula platform includes the engine, and no mention here that these are ICE cars. My second comment is regarding 'What's the point of driverless racing?'. A2RL takes away all the things I like about racing except the 'roaring noise' and that can be done away with by making these all electric. Make them electric and I have absolutely no reason to watch.
Or so I thought at first. I'm an old 68 yo geezer, and as I thought about this over my morning bowl of Metamucil fortified Wheatena, I realized there is a future population that has no idea of what past motor racing was like and really couldn't care. After watching several seasons of Drive To Survive I see that younger people can take away a different story. I can see doing away with a driver in the car and putting him in a simulator rig actually driving from the sidelines. You don't need guys that look like Verstappen or Hamilton, you don't need people with names like Lando or Hulkenberg. And, they obviously don't need to be all male. This has nothing to do with the autonomous driving series that this article is about, but it gets to my point that motor racing is going to change because there is this newer younger audience that has no point of reference other than Tesla Plaids for going fast.
Why not have a race series a bunch of Tesla Plaids, put internet influencers in the driver seats, set the cars on Full Self Driving mode and then floor it! They can TikTok / Insta the whole race!
Or so I thought at first. I'm an old 68 yo geezer, and as I thought about this over my morning bowl of Metamucil fortified Wheatena, I realized there is a future population that has no idea of what past motor racing was like and really couldn't care. After watching several seasons of Drive To Survive I see that younger people can take away a different story. I can see doing away with a driver in the car and putting him in a simulator rig actually driving from the sidelines. You don't need guys that look like Verstappen or Hamilton, you don't need people with names like Lando or Hulkenberg. And, they obviously don't need to be all male. This has nothing to do with the autonomous driving series that this article is about, but it gets to my point that motor racing is going to change because there is this newer younger audience that has no point of reference other than Tesla Plaids for going fast.
Why not have a race series a bunch of Tesla Plaids, put internet influencers in the driver seats, set the cars on Full Self Driving mode and then floor it! They can TikTok / Insta the whole race!
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New rule: all inputs to the motor vehicle MUST come from a humanoid robot. Only one humanoid robot allowed per team in each race.
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Go algorithm fbd1e904-29d5-45cf-8541-31b00ac553fb!!
Seriously, we could watch an excellently-rendered simulation for a minute fraction of the cost.
Seriously, we could watch an excellently-rendered simulation for a minute fraction of the cost.
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May I assume you are the actual Hazel Southwell of this article? I have just finished reading your article 'What it's actually like to visit Riyadh, alone, for Formula E'. Excellent article. I see now there's a change coming with the new generation in regards to motorsports racing.
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Oh wow you're the Hazel!? Have you been to Riyadh since that post?
I was supposed to spend a few days on a layover there (before plans changed) and from the comments I've seen it's supposedly changed massively over the last couple of years. Unfortunately didn't get to see that myself but seems like your assessment was more accurate than that of the naysayers. Hope you've had an easier time there if you have returned since.
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