Watch Roborace's self-driving race car hustle around the track
This is the first in-car video showcasing the DevBot's capabilities at near-race pace.
Robots are coming for drivers of all shapes and sizes -- regular commuters, truck drivers and even race car drivers. Here's what it looks like when an autonomous race car flies around a track without a driver.
The car you see in the video is the DevBot, a proof-of-concept that will eventually comprise the underpinnings of the Roborace autonomous racing series. Roborace has been showing off the DevBot's capabilities before FIA Formula E races, and this video comes from Formula E's racetrack on the streets of Berlin.
It's sort of freaky to see the car navigate the track without a driver, and while the line is relatively safe, it's still moving rather quickly using five lidar emitters, two radar emitters, 18 ultrasonic sensors, six cameras and two optical speed sensors. Each of its electric motors (there are four total) will put out about 400 horsepower in its final form, and it should be able to exceed 200 mph.
When Roborace starts in earnest, the cars themselves will be provided by the series, but it'll be up to each team to field their own software, which will be built off an open AI platform shared across the series. Some might race like madmen, while others might just hit a wall and spin in circles, so it's sort of like Formula 1 in that respect.
