Friday, March 29, 2024

Indy Autonomous Challenge racecar sets a new land speed world record

The Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) racecar has set a new land speed world record of 192.2 mph (309.3 km/h) over 1,000 meters (0.62 miles). Developed by team PoliMOVE from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the University of Alabama (USA), the autonomous race car took to the tracks on a space shuttle airstrip at NASA‘s historic Kennedy Space Center.

Operating the Dallara AV-21, PoliMOVE team set out to push the limits of a boosted engine package during test runs. The upgraded engine package, capable of delivering 30% more horsepower than previous models, will be on all IAC racecars moving forward.

“Congratulations to the PoliMOVE team for making the Dallara AV-21 the fastest autonomous racecar in the world,” said Andrea Pontremoli, CEO and general manager of Dallara. “This record run sets a new bar for the top speed capabilities of autonomous competition vehicles, and we are thrilled to be a part of this future. Dallara is also very proud to partner with leading software and engineering industries working together with the best universities of the world to contribute towards the development of fully autonomous transportation.”

The Dallara AV-21 race car is packed with hardware and controls to enable automation. This includes three Luminar Hydra LiDAR, optical cameras, sensors, self-driving actuators, as well as additional batteries which are needed to power the added wiring and sensors.

The IAC is working to establish a hub for performance automation in the state and is harnessing the power of prize competition to attract the best and the brightest minds from around the globe to further the state-of-the-art technology in the safety and performance of automated vehicles. The IAC contest has certainly drawn plenty of interest from around the world, with 41 university teams already signed up.

The primary goal of the IAC is to solve real-world problems by advancing technology that will speed the commercialization of fully autonomous vehicles and deployments of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Pushing Limits for the entire autonomous community and helping to increase safety and performance is of critical importance, not only in motorsports but across all modes of commercial transportation.

Prof. Sergio Savaresi, team lead of Politecnico di Milano said, “We were running a car operating on algorithms alone, where precision is paramount, and any small prediction error could have created a completely different outcome. This test run was exhilarating, and we are thrilled with the world record, but we’re also excited by the fact that this data will be made available to all, and the industry will benefit from our work and learnings.”