Formula E to go robotic
As well as doing away with fossil fuels, from 2016 Formula E, the battery-powered alternative to Formula 1 will be doing away with drivers, too
Roborace will see autonomous race cars challenge each other to see which team has the best artificially intelligent alternative to a racing driver.
The new racing program, which will form part of the Formula E schedule for the 2016-17 season is a collaboration with the Kinetik investment fund. The series will start slowly but the goal is that a one-hour autonomous race will serve as a prologue to each Formula E championship event.
"It's a global platform to show that robotic technologies and AI can co-exist with us in real life. Thus, anyone who is at the edge of this transformation now has a platform to show the advantages of their driverless solutions and this shall push the development of the technology," said Kinetik founder Denis Sverdlov.
And to ensure that no AI or autonomous system has a mechanical advantage, each of the 10 competing teams will do so in identical cars.
