Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - July 2022 - 13

Software
But the ability to have the cars
racing head-to-head was always what
we were seeking, and that's what we did
in Las Vegas. And the format of that
competition, two cars at a time passing
each other at increasingly higher speeds
until one either gives up - or there's a
wreck - is really exciting.
You just completed two days of
testing at the Kennedy Space Center
and you set a new automated-vehicle
speed record. What were you
doing and what did you learn?
It was a test run to figure out how the
new engine package was going to work.
We wanted to boost the speeds of the
cars because we kind of hit the limit in
Las Vegas, and we want to make sure
the next time these cars run they can
go faster. It just happened to be that the
new package went over 300 km/h (186
mph), so that resulted in a new land
speed record for autonomous vehicles.
We're honored and excited to have that
record. I'm confident we'll probably
continue to break it over the years.
Can those monitoring the cars take
control if they see a problem?
No. Race control that is monitoring all
the cars has the kind of red button, and
that kill switch is electronic and it's sent
to the car. So we can tell the car to turn
off. We can also tell the car to come back
to the pits. So we can give it a black flag.
All the flags are electronic. There's a
green flag, a yellow flag, a white flag, a
black flag. We have our own flags, like a
purple flag, which is our version of kill
all the cars on the track at the same time.
Are there any plans to hold an actual
race with a full field of cars, to see
how intelligently they interact?
Not anytime soon. We did originally.
Our original hypothesis was that the
Indy Autonomous Challenge would be a
full field of vehicles running against each
other. And I think we realized that while
we could do it, that the reality is that it
wouldn't be a very productive use of the
assets in the sense that, inevitably, some
of the cars are going to mis-perform, just
like you have in a race. That's going to
cause wrecks, cause accidents. And with
our vehicles, one of the challenges is, if it
wrecks or causes an accident, there's not a
driver [to guide the racecar out of danger].
To spend the time programming
the algorithms to [handle] vehicle
recoveries and safety spins and all that
kind of stuff, it's not really the best use
of the coder's time. What we're trying
to do is validate vehicle interactions
and dynamics at high speeds, which is
replicable to the commercial industry. ■
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Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - July 2022

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