BBC Focus

he autonomous car is
perhaps one of the most
exciting and intriguing
subjects currently topping
the agenda of most
automotive manufacturers.
We can already buy cars with
a host of automated features.
Some even allow us to take our hands off the wheel
for long periods on the motorway, and we’re
probably just a few years away from a truly self-
driving (and road-legal) vehicle.
But however long it takes, one thing is clear:
racing fa ns will soon be able to watch a completely
driverless speed machine zoom around an
inner-city circuit, a nd it will happen by t he end of
this year.
Roborace, a new fully-autonomous racing series,
has confirmed it will host its first events during the
rounds of the 2016/2017 season of the Formula E

championship (the world’s largest all-electric race

series), which means we could see driverless

machines do battle as ea rly as t his October.

Just picture the scene: a procession of space-age

racers speed past a fully illuminated London Eye.

Huge crowds of cheering fa ns line t he tight u rba n

streets as pounding techno music fills the air. The

sleek machines, which emit only a faint whir from

their electric motors, swerve and jostle for position.

The volume of the crowd rises as the sleek crafts

approach the finish line. They snake and dart across

the course but there are no drivers to hear the chants

and shouts because, of course, these machines are

fully, spookily, autonomous. They don’t call it

Roborace for nothing.

The marketing team behind the series has said it

will showcase talent f rom t he worlds of Ar tif icial

Intelligence (AI), as well as engineering and

software development, while simultaneously

entertaining fans around the world.

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FRONT CAMERAS

COOLING INTAKE

GLOBAL NAVIGATION SATELLITE SYSTEM (GNSS)

ANTENNA – USED FOR NAVIGATION

AI ‘BRAIN’ NVIDIA DRIVETM PX2 – PROCESSES

INPUT FROM SENSORS, LIDAR, RADAR, ETC

LIFT HOOK

V2X GNSS ANTENNA – USED FOR NAVIGATION

TOWER WITH 360^0 TV CAMERA, AI CAMERAS,

PRESSURE INSTRUMENT, STATUS LIGHTS

REAR RADAR

REAR LIDAR

GURNEY FLAP – INCREASES DOWNFORCE

TO IMPROVE TRACTION

BATTERY COOLING OUTLET

EXTENDED FLOOR

SIDE LIDARS

FRONT CORNER LIDARS

FRONT SPLITTER SLOTS

FRONT RADAR

ULTRASONIC SENSORS

T

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