We’ve been closely following Roborace since their visit to Hong Kong during Formula E last year and their testing of the prototype DevBot. While we’ve seen plenty of renders of Roborace’s final vision for the autonomous racing series, we’re now able to finally see a complete car in the flesh at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The autonomous nature of Robocar definitely shapes its appearance: as there is no driver, there is no need for a driving compartment. Designer Daniel Simon of Tron: Legacy fame created the extraordinary race car with a height well under one metre. There are a total of four 300kW motors that push the vehicle to a top speed of 320 km/h. Powered by the Nvidia Drive PX2, the Robocar’s autopilot is supported by a heap of hardware: five LIDAR sensors, two radars, 18 ultrasonic sensors, two optical speed sensors and six cameras.
There are plans for bringing two completed Robocars – not Devbots – to race against each other at a Formula E race in July. Mechanically, all Robocars are identical and each car’s performance depends on how the team engineers program it. Roborace aims to eventually have 20 Robocars competing in 10 teams before every Formula E race.
