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The new AV-24 platform made its debut at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed, setting a new autonomous speed record. | Source: Indy Autonomous Challenge
The AV-24, the latest autonomous race car in the Indy Autonomous Challenge collegiate competition, set the fastest autonomous hill climb time at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed, or FOS, last week. The car was driven by an artificial intelligence system developed by PoliMOVE-MSU, a joint effort of the Politecnico di Milano, Michigan State University, and the University of Alabama.
After three laps, the race car broke the record by reaching 111.2 mph (179 km/h) in 66.37 seconds on its third and final Goodwood Hill lap. Roborace’s DevBot 2.0 driverless car set the previous record in 2019, reaching 101.16 mph (162.8 km/h) in 66.96 seconds. The hill climb is 1.14 miles from a standstill.
At last year’s hill climb event, the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) team mapped the hill climb course, created an accurate simulation model of the course, and trained their AI driver throughout the year. This prepared the team to show up at Goodwood FOS in Sussex, England, this year to run the hill climb.
Goodwood is notorious for its small, hay-bell-shaped track and limited runoff. To maximise the AV-24’s autonomous hill-climbing performance, the IAC and PoliMOVE-MSU teams worked with Bridgestone tire engineers at their European Technical Centre in Rome and at their European Proving Ground.
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Graduated from Indy Autonomous Challenge at Goodwood
The Indy Autonomous Challenge noted that it had participated in the Future Lab presented by Randox at last year’s Goodwood event, where the Technical University of Munich (TUM) used a vehicle to scan the hill at low speed to create a digital twin that would help this year’s racer.
IAC claimed to be the first exhibitor to “graduate” from Future Lab to Hillclimb, which showcased STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) including autonomous vehicles, augmented and virtual reality, robotics and drones, sensor fusion, solar, the Internet of Things (IoT), and generative AI.
IAC’s partners and sponsors provide the chassis, drivetrain, tires, and a variety of sensors, simulation, testing, and control equipment needed for a race car, allowing university teams to focus on their unique autonomous driving technologies.
The Goodwood FOS is the second major event on the 2024 Indy Autonomous Challenge racing calendar, as outlined by CEO Paul Mitchell. On September 6, the IAC returns to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where it began in 2021.
New racing car debuts at CES 2024
The Dallara AV-24 features new computers, sensors, networking, and actuators to enhance the race team’s control architecture. | Source: Indy Autonomous Challenge
The Dallara AV-24 debuted at the 2024 IAC @ CES at Las Vegas Raceway in January 2024. During CES 2024, nine teams from 18 universities competed with their existing AV-21 race car or demonstrated their new AV-24 race car.
The TUM Autonomous Motorsports Team defeated the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Autonomous Race Car Team at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with their AV-21 race car. The race car achieved a speed of 150 mph (241 km/h).
TUM and KAIST went wheel-to-wheel in rounds 1 and 2, coming as close as 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in the semifinals, a first for the competition. The other AV-21 teams were Autonomous Tiger Racing of Auburn University, Black & Gold of Purdue University, and MIT-PITT-RW of MIT, Pitt, Rochester, and Waterloo.
The AV-24 race car was demonstrated at Las Vegas Motor Speedway by AI Racing Tech from the University of California, Berkeley, University of Hawaii, San Diego, Carnegie Mellon, PoliMOVE-MSU, and TII UNIMORE Racing from Modena and Reggio Emilia.
