Audi's Driverless Car Goes Racing

Audi, the German luxury carmaker, was spotted having a lot of fun at the DTM season finale yesterday as the Audi RS 7 piloted driving (read: driverless) concept completed a lap at the Hockenim Grand Prix track. The company says the concept completed the lap in a little over 2 minutes.

Powering the vehicle is a 560bhp petrol engine that helps the car reach a top-speed of 305Km/h. For orientation on the track, Audi uses specially corrected GPS signals; the GPS data is transmitted to the car via WiFi according to the automotive standard and redundantly via high-frequency radio. The company further says that the car is equipped with 3D cameras that film the track, while a computer program compares the cameras' image information against a data set stored on board.

Audi has been working on piloted driving technology for years, and the first successful developments were achieved 10 years ago. In the year 2010, an autonomous TTS research car, developed by a team from Stanford University, completed the 20Km Pikes Peak mountain stretch in 27 minutes. A similar car was then driven around California's Thunderhill Raceway in 2012. And last month, Audi became the first carmaker to get an autonomous driving permit from California.

"The top 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."