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Hillclimbs are nothing new. Come to think of it, they're one of the oldest forms of motorsport after the first took place at La Turbie near Nice all the way back in 1897. But an autonomous Hillclimb? Now that's that's a different matter altogether.
Between July 12 and 15, Formula E's all-electric autonomous support event will be taking to the infamous 1.16-mile hillclimb on the Goodwood estate as part of the 25th Goodwood Festival of Speed [FoS] with not a driver in sight.
We are excited that the Duke of Richmond [FoS founder] has invited us to make history at Goodwood as we attempt the first ever fully - and truly - autonomous uphill climb using only artificial intelligence," said Roborace CEO and Formula E reigning champion Lucas di Grassi (Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler).
Powered by four 135kW electric motors (one for each wheel), the Roborace car relies on an artificial intelligence driver algorithm for guidance, while a NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 computer is responsible for handling the huge amount of data, including information from its LiDAR, radar, GPS, and ultrasonic systems, as well as camera sensors. Simple, right?
Starting at the bottom of the Goodwood estate, the narrow track snakes around the main house, up past the notorious shale wall and up to the finish line at the top of the hill. "The Goodwood hillclimb presents a real challenge for level four/level five autonomous driving systems," said AI Sergey Malygin, the chief of software for the project. "Turns and hills with a great deal of tree coverage mean you can't rely on GPS/RTK signal for localisation. Use of all advanced sensors, including LiDARs and cameras with deep learning-based computer vision methods are needed to perform well at this course," he added.
With Roborace making use of Formula E circuits all around the world to test and develop the latest autonomous technology, the Goodwood hillclimb will be the latest challenge for the world's first driverless electric racing car.
"I can't think of a more exciting way to celebrate our Silver Jubilee than to have Roborace attempt the first autonomous race car run up the hill," said Charles Gordon-Lennox, the Duke of Richmond and Founder of the Festival of Speed. "Roborace plays an important role in the future of mobility, challenging public perceptions and providing a platform to advance new technologies. This makes them the perfect partner to undertake this significant feat.”