At the DTM season finale at Hockenheim at the weekend, an Audi RS 7 completed a lap of the GP track... at racing speed, without a driver.

It took the RS 7 slightly over two minutes to complete a lap on the Hockenheim track, the car "piloted with high precision and accuracy to within centimetres" according to the manufacturer.

"The performance by the Audi RS 7 today substantiates the skills of our development team with regard to piloted driving at Audi," said Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Board Member for Technical Development at Audi AG. "The derivations from series production, particularly in terms of precision and performance, are of great value for our further development steps."

For orientation on the track, the technology pioneer uses specially corrected GPS signals. This GPS data is transmitted to the vehicle via Wi-Fi according to the automotive standard and redundantly via high-frequency radio. In parallel to this, 3D cameras in the car film the track, and a computer program compares the cameras' image information against a data set stored on board. This is what makes it possible for the technology pioneer to orient itself on the track within centimetres.

Piloted driving is one of the most important development fields at Audi, the first successful developments being achieved ten years ago. The test results continually flow into series development. The latest test runs at the physical limit are providing the Audi engineers with insights for the development of automatic avoidance functions in critical driving situations, for example.

Driver assistance systems from Audi are already making (road) driving more relaxed and better controlled, and can be experienced in the updated A6 and A7 Sportback series.

Experts from Volkswagen Group Research, the Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) and Stanford University (both in California) are supporting Audi as partners in the further development of piloted systems.

Audi is claiming an average speed for the lap of 149 mph, thereby setting a driverless car record, while a subsequent lap in which a the 560 bhp car was driven by a human was around five-seconds slower.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by nealio, 22/10/2014 18:03

"Could not care less..."

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2. Posted by stoney, 22/10/2014 11:43

"Hello to the future of Le Mans. His name is Bobbi.
He never tires or needs a driver change.

He doesn't bring in any foreign investment, but his brand value is second to none.
He doesn't do press interviews or sponsor events. His entourage handle that.

Creating AIs that can compete and co-exist with each other will be directly relevant to introducing technology on the road, so this will definitely happen.

But I wouldn't say this is the future of F1, because Audi already said that F1 isn't relevant for them. They've been at Le Mans for so many years, I've lost count, so they don't bail out either. Neither has Porsche, Chevy or Ferrari. I would tend to agree that this will apply for any car manufacturer..."

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3. Posted by nonickname, 22/10/2014 10:01

"Well,well, go back to my comments on the electric formula cars last month and give me full points!!!
It is the logical end to F1 as we know it.
The next step would be to replace Bernie with a similar system,we would get the same negotiations for obscure tracks done quicke,r with out the bad hair style."

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4. Posted by Tony B Liar, 22/10/2014 8:57

"This would be a fantastic bonus to F1.

Let's get the Robo-drivers out there pronto. No more would we have to listen to the corporate-speak, monosyllabic responses in the post race press conference - instead we would get the spontaneous, joyful outpourings from a real personality who is bursting with pride at winning.

Oh hang on mo.... that's Moto GP. It would never do for F1 to put on show with real racers.

Nah, let's stay with the boring, sour-faced spoiled brats (Dan R is excluded from that) who moan about the damp when they can't drive round a corner correctly."

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5. Posted by MrShadow, 22/10/2014 8:40

"It would take out the risk of injury, though U would prefer a direct link to a simulator parked in the pits...."

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Talking of mega-buck driver contracts...

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