A global race series for driverless electric cars will be launched by Formula E and Kinetik next year. The new championship, called "ROBORACE" will bring autonomous electric vehicles to the track which will be a support series for the FIA Formula E Championship's 2016-2017 season.
An article on FIAFormulae.com revealed that ROBORACE was planned to form part of the support package of the FIA Formula E Championship. It is aimed to take place before each Formula E race, using the same circuits in major cities globally.
How does it work?
There will be ten teams with two driverless cars each, which will compete in one-hour races over the full championship season. The same cars will be assigned to all the teams, and will compete using real-time computing algorithms and AI technologies.
The founder of Kinetik and ROBORACE, Denis Sverdlov, said it is their passionate belief that vehicles all over the world will be assisted by AI and powered by electricity in the future, which will improve the environment and road safety.
"ROBORACE is a celebration of revolutionary technology and innovation that humanity has achieved in that area so far. 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," Sverdlov said.
Further details about these driverless racecars will be announced early next year.
According to an article on AutoBlog.com, ROBORACE would be "fascinating to watch because major automakers have already shown autonomous vehicles can perform on the track."