The German car giant; Audi says its RS-7 concept car vehicle topped 149mph (240km/h) while driving uncrewed round the Hockenheim racing circuit, south of Frankfurt making it the fastest autonomous car on the planet, according to the automaker. The car took just over two minutes to complete a lap of the Grand Prix track.
Audi – a division of Volkswagen – also put a human behind the wheel of the vehicle for a comparison lap. He took five seconds longer to complete the circuit. To make sure the car stayed on the track, Audi used GPS signals that were transmitted to the vehicle via Wi-Fi. The RS-7 also uses 3D cameras to film the track, as well as an advanced computer program (stored in the trunk) that compared the cameras’ image information against an on-board data set.
Audi compares its system to the autopilot on a modern airplane, and that includes redundant safety measures. There’s more than one system used for localization, for instance: after all, the car needs to know exactly where it is at any given moment on the race track, combining the inputs of dual cameras mounted on the driver’s side and differential GPS.
Other redundancies are found in the braking system – if one braking system fails, the other kicks in – and the same for signal areas, with multiple sensor arrays included. The third key redundancy is the power supply, ensuring that, if something fails, the second system takes over. Each of the redundancies compare results, to make sure they match up for the most optimal performance.
Despite a number of manufacturers working on autonomous vehicles—including Nissan, Mercedes, Toyota, and Google—the FBI worries they could be used as lethal weapons if they fall into the wrong hands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeWriarFlsU
