German team wins autonomous challenge at CES
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The Indy Autonomous Challenge hosted its annual racing event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week as part of CES 2024. The Autonomous Challenge @ CES was won by TUM Autonomous Motorsport from the Technical University of Munich and featured first-time milestones for autonomous racing.
TUM Autonomous Motorsport, which won the inaugural Indy Autonomous Challenge in 2021, took the checkered flag with maximum speeds of more than 150 miles per hour.
During the race, the IAC said TUM and the racecar operated by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology ran side-by-side through two turns, a first for high-speed autonomous racing.
Cavalier Autonomous Racing from the University of Virginia was the runner up in the race, which also featured participants from Purdue University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others.
After the sun set over the speedway, the IAC demonstrated its next generation autonomous vehicle, the IAC AV-24, by having three university teams take to the track in total darkness except for LED lights around the racecars themselves.
The goal was to demonstrate the ability of autonomous vehicle technology to operate without any visible light.
“Over the years, we have witnessed historic moments, from the first-ever head-to-head autonomous racecar competition in 2022, to setting a new autonomous world speed record in 2023,” IAC President Paul Mitchell said in a news release. “Now, with the operation of three IAC AV-24s in total darkness, we continue to push the boundaries of high-speed autonomy.”
The three university teams involved in the demonstration were:
- AI Racing Tech – University of California, Berkeley (California), University of Hawai’i (Hawai’i), with University of California, San Diego (California), Carnegie Mellon University (Pennsylvania)
- PoliMOVE-MSU – Politecnico di Milano (Italy), University of Alabama (Alabama), Michigan State University (Michigan)
- TII EuroRacing – University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy), Technology Innovation Institute (United Arab Emirates)
You can learn more about the AV-24 automomous racecar by clicking here.
The Indy Autonomous Challenge was originally created as a $1 million prize challenge to develop autonomous racing technology, which culminated in the 2021 competition at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Since then, the IAC has brought its autonomous racecars to Texas and Italy, in addition to multiple races in Las Vegas.