Recent advances are proving that automated cars are indeed the future of human transport. It is, therefore, not surprising to find a group of enthusiasts announce a competitive racing between automated vehicles called Roborace last year.
Unfortunately, its first ever event last Feb. 18 held at the Formula E Buenos Aires ePrix ended tragically for a participant, which crashed after it briefly made its way around the track. It appears that the self-driving car have pushed itself too far so that it eventually hit a barrier, leaving the only remaining participant the winner by default.
Self-Driving Race Promise
Despite the incident, the automated vehicles dubbed as Devbots have demonstrated a surprising viability for this type of race in the future. Most importantly, it showed the world that the self-driving car competition can be done.
One should note that the participating vehicles are in their early stages of development, but they already displayed a high level of technical sophistication.
Videos that captured the event showed the cars racing at a respectable pace, significantly slower than conventional race cars. The winner, for instance, eked out a 115 mph top speed.
However, the manner by which the Devbots' softwares were able to handle the demands of the competitive race and the barriers of the racing circuit is already quite impressive.
Si, estos dos autos no tienen piloto... son los @roborace, pic.twitter.com/2sSX22XDyd
— Diego Zorrero (@dzorrero) February 18, 2017
On Roborace's Devbots
Roborace calls itself as a global championship of intelligence and technology. This focus underpins why its race mechanics is a bit different. Teams have to use the same Robocar automated vehicle, and the winner is ultimately determined by the quality and mettle of the softwares that control them.
The participating Devbots in the recently concluded Roborace were just development cars and included cabins that can be driven by human passengers to understand how the car thinks and feels when racing the circuit.
Future Of Racing
The Robocars that will ultimately compete in Roborace are sleeker and is designed by Daniel Simon, who is credited for the visual effects in Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, and Captain America films. Future races are therefore something to look forward to especially if teams are finally able to improve on their own self-driving software technologies.
At this point, racing enthusiasts might still be polarized about the self-driving car race. A number of purists will probably balk at the idea of calling it a race when no humans are involved, pushing their own limit to win.
There are also probably those who will find appeal in the manner by which the race will not harm anybody. When one of the Devbots, for example, crashed, no one was injured.
