The Roborace car is a beautiful and iconic piece of automotive design. The autonomous racing car has been designed by Daniel Simon and will be the foundation for each of the 10 teams slated to take part in the driverless car championship. On this page you’ll find all the details we know about the Roborace car, so keep checking back for the latest news on this marvel of engineering and technology.
Roborace Car: Kinetik Reveals Robocar Concept
Kinetic, the venture capital firm behind the Roborace championship gave fans a first look at what the ‘Robocar’ would look like in March 2016.
The Roborace concept car is the brainchild of Daniel Simon, a concept designer from Germany. Mr Simon’s career has seen him work for some of the biggest names in the automotive industry such as Volkswagen and Bugatti, as well as blockbuster films in hollywood.
One of Daniel’s most iconic design is the motorcycle featured in science fiction action adventure film Tron. And now that Mr Simon has turned his talents to creating the worlds first Driverless racing car, he has excelled once again.
In the announcement, Denis Sverdlov, CEO of Roborace, said: “We are honoured to have Daniel working with us on this project as chief design officer. His passion and experience are undeniable and I believe it’s already set to be one of the most iconic vehicles in automotive history. . .
We nicknamed the competition the ‘global championship of intelligence’ as an open challenge to the world’s smartest minds, so its only fitting that the car should be one of the smartest ever to be made, thanks to Daniel it may also be the most beautiful car ever to touch a road surface. It’s gaming, motorsport, technology and entertainment all rolled into one. I passionately believe that the future of cars is about software; driverless, electric and connected and Roborace will help to make that a reality.”
Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag also had this to say: “Today is an historic day for motorsport, and the car industry in general. This first image of the Robocar, designed by Daniel Simon, represents a vision of what cars will be, a vision of our future. In Formula E we are proud to promote, together with pioneers like Denis Sverdlov and Daniel Simon, a revolution in the world of motorsport, a project that will change the future of mobility.”
In addition to the images released in March, a new image in August was released showing all the features of the Roborace car in full detail. It is to help guide the people to know how packed the car is and is all set for its first race.
As mentioned above, the car is packed with every piece of tech that might be available on the planet. The Roborace race car is covered with a large number of antennas, radars and sensors to keep it running while being controlled from a distance.
Robocar : A High Tech Beast
Details in the image (above) show that the Roborace Kinetik racing car has a number of radar sensors and lidar that have been placed all around the body. Besides this, the car also has two units of navigation systems on the top, which will help in accurately identifying its position.
Additionally, together with the AI cameras Robocar has a little tower that houses a 360-degree TV camera, AI cameras and status lights.
To compete, Roborace teams will have the benefit of a powerful and fast computer. To be exact, the beast we are talking about is the NVidia Drive PX 2.
It is capable of doing 24 trillion calculations/operations every second with its 12 cores and computing power of eight teraflops. The hardware is also the same as that used in Tesla’s autonomous-ready consumer cars, and many other major car manufacturers models.
The Roborace Kinetik car’ computers are so powerful that the vehicle has dedicated cooling vents to keep the processor cool and keep it running at full speed. With so much tech involved, this driverless car race will become a stern test of the team’s’ engineering skills and allow them to develop consumer solutions that work through the Roborace Car.
As a proving ground for self-driving cars, Roborace Formula E curtain raisers will produce tried and tested application that can be used on autonomous vehicles for consumers.
The Roborace Car is currently undergoing testing through a prototype called Devbot and it has now taken to the track autonomously already.
At the time of writing an official Roborace schedule was not yet available save for assurances that the championship would take place before Formula E races. Therefore it is still unclear when is Roborace going to start or when we’ll see Robocar in action. Roborace teams will also be announced in due course. Stay tuned for more . . .
