the Indy Autonomous Challenge sponsored by ciscoby terry daniels
just imagine the indianapolis 500 with no drivers in the cars
that mat be the future and october 23rd 2021 may have been that beginning
the Indy Autonomous Challenge is a autonomous car race that will showcase technology and innovation at the famed indianapolis motor speedway
so what is a autonomous race car ? here is the definition i was able to find on the internet
a Autonomous or self-driving racingcar , autonomous motorsports is an evolving sport of racing ground-based wheeled vehicles, controlled by computer, and Self Racing Cars as well as student competitions such as Formula Student Driverless.
indy car chassis manufacturer Dallara made the AV-21 chassis for several colleges including purdue university, auburn university and kaist university from south korea each race car has over a mile and a half of wiring with bridgestone tires and are priced at over one million there is a $1 million dollar prize for the university that takes the checkered flag.
when al unser won the 1970 indianapolis 500 he shared in the first $1 million purse
1989 Race winner Emerson Fittipaldi was the first Indy 500 winner to earn a one million dollar single-race prize money purse. His prize money officially totaled $1,001,600.
the race was sponsored by Cisco Systems which is an American multinational technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Integral to the growth of Silicon Valley, Cisco develops, manufactures and sells networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and other high-technology services and products. Through its numerous acquired subsidiaries, such as OpenDNS, Webex, Jabber and Jasper, Cisco specializes in specific tech markets, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), domain security and energy management. On January 25, 2021, Cisco reincorporated in Delaware.
they say the Autonomous race cars are more precise than a driver's instinct. the software can capture stuff about friction with the track. and can tell exactly how the engine is performing.
The advantage of the Autonomous race car is they can determine exactly. We don't have to have a 'sense of it', which is what drivers do,"
well how fast will they go the fastest lap ran during qualifying was over 135 mph with straightaway speeds at over 150mph
after contests and stimulation racing the field was narrowed down to nine teams representing twenty one universities from all over the world
here are the nine finalists
AI Racing Tech – University of Hawaii, University of California San Diego
Autonomous Tiger Racing – Auburn University
Black & Gold Autonomous Racing – Purdue University, United States Military Academy at West Point, with Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (India), Universidad de San Buenaventura (Colombia)
Cavalier Autonomous Racing – University of Virginia
EuroRacing – University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy), University of Pisa (Italy), ETH Zürich (Switzerland), Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
KAIST – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (South Korea)
MIT-PITT-RW – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pittsburgh, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Waterloo (Canada)
PoliMOVE – Politecnico di Milano (Italy), University of Alabama
TUM Autonomous Motorsport – Technische Universität München (Germany)
Indiana Governor Eric J. Holcomb officially started the competition with the call “Ladies and gentlemen start your software and crank your engines." and a robot dog named spot waved the green flag to start qualifying
qualifying began with PoliMOVE a team consisting of Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the University of Alabama and their two lap average was 124.450 which gave them the provisional pole
TUM Autonomous Motorsport representing Technische Universität München from Munich Germany raised the bar by 5 miles and hour averaging 129.237 for their two lap run
third out was local favorite the Black & Gold Autonomous Racing
which consisted of Purdue University, United States Military Academy at West Point and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) however they had to move the back of the line because of technical difficulties however finally withdrew the entry from a possible qualyfing run later in the daySouth Korea's KAIST which stands for Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology was the next out the team consists of only four students and they averaged 84.355 for the two laps and was very disappointed on the run
University of Virginia's Cavalier Autonomous Racing ran thier first lap of 119.883 however technical issues eliminated them from completing the second lap of their qualifyingAI Racing Tech representing the
University of Hawaii and the University of California San Diego spun entering turn one and ended up on the road course the car did not look damaged however they did not make another attempt pre race favorite EuroRacing which represented the University of Modena Reggio Emilia (Italy), the University of Pisa (Italy), ETH Zürich (Switzerland), Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland) set the fast time at 131.176 and a two lap average of 131.148 to take the top spot away from tum Autonomous Motorsport by over 2 miles an hour
MIT-PITT-RW representing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pittsburgh, Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Waterloo (Canada) hit the wall exiting turn four on the warmup lap severely damaging their race car
Auburn University's Autonomous Tiger Racing was the last scheduled qualifier however withdrew their entry because of technical difficulties which set the shootout for the 1 million dollars between PoliMOVE,TUM Autonomous Motorsport and EuroRacing. the shootout consisted of 4 warmup laps and 2 qualifying laps
polymove was the first team out in the shootout however the car brushed up against the outer wall of the front straightaway then hit the outside wall of turn one leaving severe damage to the car and eliminating their chance of the one million dollars
TUM Autonomous Motorsport which is the largest team participating with a 45 person crew was the next team out and bettered their earlier time with a two lap average of 135.944
the third and final team in the shootout was euroracing and they had a time to beat of 135.944 their race car to have the most consented run as loosing very little speed in the turns and turned in the fastest lap of the day at 139.004 and looked like the winner however on lap 2 of their qualifying run backed off very much and ran a lap at below 100 mph giving the win to TUM Autonomous Motorsport
eurosport explained they had made a simple mistake thinking the run was over the simple mistake cost eurosport 1 million dollars
TUM Autonomous Motorsport Wins the Indy Autonomous Challenge and the $1 Million Grand Prize
