After a first-lap crash there’s still a long way to go
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: A2RL)
(Image credit: A2RL)
Also known as A2RL, the league comes from Aspire, a technology research and innovation hub that Abu Dhabi hopes will become the next Silicon Valley. With autonomous racing, Aspire also hopes to create not only a spectacle that replaces racing drivers with computer developers, but which could accelerate the development of roadgoing autonomous vehicles and their safety systems.
The AI-driven car (right) on the grid at Suzuka with a human-driven car (left)(Image credit: Future)
The AI-driven car (right) on the grid at Suzuka with a human-driven car (left)
The AI-driven car (right) on the grid at Suzuka with a human-driven car (left)
(Image credit: Future)
The league is made up of 12 teams from nine countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the USA, but not the UK, at least for now. Rather than compromising familiar names from the world of human-driven motorsport, A2RL teams mostly come from leading educational and technology institutions. The league says its ambition is to “attract some of the world’s brightest minds through the thrill of competition and a technological frontier, helping to develop autonomous technology for the wider mobility industry.”
The cockpit is home to a powerful computer that uses lidar, radar and seven cameras to see, a set of actuators to control the steering, accelerator, gearbox and brakes, and Nvidia RTX A6000 graphics cards for the artificial intelligence. There are sensors for tyre surface temperature and pressure, plus all of the sensors top-flight racing cars are normally equipped with, measuring everything from engine performance to the position of the suspension pushrods. All told, the system is producing 1 TB (1,000 GB) of data per minute.
The computer is housed in the cockpit of the modified race car(Image credit: Future)
The computer is housed in the cockpit of the modified race car
The computer is housed in the cockpit of the modified race car
(Image credit: Future)
Sign up to the T3 newsletter for smarter living straight to your inbox
Get all the latest news, reviews, deals and buying guides on gorgeous tech, home and active products from the T3 experts
Still very much a work-in-progress, A2RL isn’t yet a fully-fledged race series. The cars were last seen on-track during a demonstration at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi in April, but struggled when a crash caused a yellow flag. This asks for no overtaking, but was complied with too literally, and the robo racers queued up behind the stricken car instead of overtaking it.
Fast-forward seven months and A2RL came to Suzuka to complete two public demonstrations during the final double-header weekend of this year’s Super Formula championship.
The autonomous car successfully completed several laps of Suzuka Circuit.(Image credit: Future)
The autonomous car successfully completed several laps of Suzuka Circuit.
The autonomous car successfully completed several laps of Suzuka Circuit.
(Image credit: Future)
They also cannot drive over the curbs, as the vibrations would affect the car’s vision sensors and damage the computer. “We are working on designing a control technique for weaving,” said Dr Giovanni Pau, the team principal of TII Racing, a UAE-based team. “It looks simple for a human but for an AI driver it’s really crazy,” he added.
The cars lap the complex circuit confidently, pulling away from the start line and turning through corners just as a human driver would on a parade lap. During this first demo the cars appear fairly slow, but the team assures us they are saving their vehicles for a higher-speed demo in the man-vs-machine battle the following day.
Away from the cars themselves, A2RL has plans to reinvent how fans engage with live motorsport from home. The league has developed a virtual reality app for theMeta QuestVR headset and an augmented reality system for theApple Pro Vision. T3 found the latter was particularly impressive, with an AR environment showing a 360-degree onboard view from a car, plus live data, a broadcast TV feed, and a digitised top-down view of the circuit. Showing the live position of each car, it felt like a Scalextric track on your living room floor made real.
A2RL is developing an augmented reality app for the Apple Vision Pro headset(Image credit: Anthony Cuthbertson)
A2RL is developing an augmented reality app for the Apple Vision Pro headset
A2RL is developing an augmented reality app for the Apple Vision Pro headset
(Image credit: Anthony Cuthbertson)
Although the cars are slow today, there is confidence that A2RL could genuinely pitch computer-driven cars against professional racers. “We will get very, very close to human performance, and at some point we may beat it,” Pau said, adding that it is his dream to create a race series where a grid of 10 humans and 10 AI-driven cars compete against each other, or even act as teammates. This is something Pau confidently says could be possible in the next two or three years, and after that he hopes to offer the car’s intelligence as a commercial product. In essence, it would be an AI for a road car that recognises when the driver has lost control, then steps in and takes over. Today’s stability control, but with AI baked in. “That is really where I think we will make a long-term impact,” he added.
Aspire CEO Stephane Timpano echoed this prediction, saying: “We want to use autonomous and robotics technology and AI to force new breakthroughs. We use these technologies in competitive environments like motorsport because it is the best way to prove to the world that they will have a great impact on everyday life.”
Lower track temperatures than the previous day, along with the car sitting on track for “an extended period” before the lap began, may also have contributed, they said. Due to a busy Super Formula schedule taking up the rest of the day, there wasn’t time to fix the car or try again using a backup.
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
Khurram Hassan, director of A2RL, told T3 as the crashed car was being recovered: “The simulation-to-reality gap is still a lot. You can do things on a computer screen, but this is why [real-world experience] is so important…We’re still a few months away from the car being able to warm the tyres up itself…We’ll learn from it and go on.”
Speaking to T3 before the crash, Pau emphasised, despite the rapid improvements, how primitive the self-driving technology still is: “Today I believe we are still in infancy. The child is still learning to walk. I have a dream of teaching the AI car how to control itself in very hard situations…at that point, an AI car could take over from a normal driver, such as when losing grip.”
Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: sensational sound, ordinary ANCBowers & Wilkins' step-down true wireless earbuds sound amazing and are well-priced – so what’s the catch, if anything?
Bowers & Wilkins' step-down true wireless earbuds sound amazing and are well-priced – so what’s the catch, if anything?
Try this 4-week core workout plan to build strength, stability, and definitionUnlock full-body power with this simple yet effective core routine – no endless crunches, just real results
Unlock full-body power with this simple yet effective core routine – no endless crunches, just real results
