To win in racing, you must reduce the weight. So why not remove the driver? Students at OTH Regensburg are doing just that by building an autonomous race car. The hardware to control the car is based on an AI inference computer by Syslogic.
The chase for precious seconds is the key to race car driving. For maximum speed, race cars must be as light as possible. Until now, Colin Chapman, founder of the Lotus race car brand, was considered the undisputed lightweight champion. However, the students at OTH Regensburg (East Bavarian Technical University) are stepping up the game. For their latest race car design, they decided to omit the driver and thus save a significant amount of weight. Strictly speaking, the OTH Regensburg students did not actually come up with the idea, but they were part of the group that transformed the idea into reality.
In the Formula Student competition, teams from all over the world are facing off with their own monoposto race car designs. The teams are competing against each other in three different categories. Race cars with combustion engines are competing in the “Formula Student Combustion (FSC)” category, while electric vehicles are facing each other in the “Formula Student Electric (FSE)” category. In 2017, the race series introduced a third category: “Formula Student Driverless (FSD)”. This category was established for autonomous race cars using combustion engines or electric motors.
The OTH Regensburg Dynamics e.V. team has been competing in the race series since 2008. Next season, Dynamics e.V. will compete for the first time with a race car that can drive with a driver or autonomously. Accordingly, this allows the team to compete in both the Electric and Driverless categories. At the heart of the intelligent control system for autonomous operation is an AI-enabled (artificial intelligence) vehicle computer designed by Embedded Specialist Syslogic. As the designated hardware partner, Syslogic is providing the AI computer for the racing team.
Provisional test setup in the lab - the embedded system serves as the brain of the self-driving system.
Provisional test setup in the lab - the embedded system serves as the brain of the self-driving system.
The autonomous racing car is currently being tested - the AI Vehicle Computer from Syslogic is still provisionally lashed down.
