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Tell HN: I'm creating an autonomous racing series
- minimaxir 11y agoAn announcement is not a Show HN. Additionally, you should use the title of the announcement as the submission title.
- syoc 11y agoThis is really cool. Will hacking self driving cars to allow "racing mode" be a thing in the future? Concept is really innovative and I think it would show just how good self driving cars are vs manual drivers. Hope the big bois (google, apple etc) will jump on if this becomes a thing.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoAudi did this about 6 years ago up Pike's Peak: http://www.wired.com/2010/11/audis-robotic-car-climbs-pikes-peak/ http://www.wired.com/2010/11/audis-robotic-car-climbs-pikes-...
- jonah 11y agoAudi also has an RS7 set up for self-driving on a track. It can turn quite good lap times but currently the racing line is just preprogramed and so it can't handle other vehicles on the track at the same time, but it's still neat progress. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2k2LpV6H7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2k2LpV6H7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOYsI1cqUrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOYsI1cqUrw
- joshu 11y agoRacing isn't the same as driving fast. I don't think there's been any autonomous racing yet - just time trials. This is more about the engineering challenge of building and controlling the vehicles.
- skykooler 11y agoLooking forward to this, will be really interested to see how it turns out!
- spotman 11y agoThis is brilliant. Will be watching closely!
- joshu 11y agoThanks. I've been thinking about how to do this for quite a while, and it finally occurred to me I don't have to start with a full-on race.
- 650REDHAIR 11y agoI'll ride along in someone's autonomous race taxi. I think we could get Sonoma on board for some hot laps!
- sokoloff 11y agoMost racetracks are available for rent.
- 650REDHAIR 11y agoMost racetracks have crazy, crazy insurance policies and the thought of having autonomous cars on the track would send them into a tizzy.
- nxzero 11y ago(Not that this effort is intended to do so, but)... Guessing without wrecks, autonomous racing would likely never become mainstream.
- taneq 11y agoRacing is about pushing the limit until something breaks, then easing juust slightly back from that limit. There will always be crashes, equipment failures, and things blowing up.
- joshu 11y agoNormal racing involves a fair bit of collision, too. There are at least a few teams out there with working robots. The racetrack is a much more controlled environment than the street, and there is a great deal more safety set up.
- Animats 11y agoAlso, this particular raceway is in an isolated area.[1] There's lots of open space if anything goes badly wrong. [1] https://goo.gl/maps/1oTTBJNGEjL2 https://goo.gl/maps/1oTTBJNGEjL2
- joshu 11y agoBeyond that it's actually Thunderhill West, which is the smaller track to the west. In that photo, it doesn't even exist except as a bunch of dirt trails.
- joshu 11y agoEdit: I think parent means that the wrecking is what people are watching for? There's not a lot of spectators in club racing. This isn't for spectators anyway.
- nxzero 11y agoExactly, race clubs are for racing, not wrecking. Mainstream racing is designed to entertain the fan(antic)s - and they watch the races for the wrecks.
- joshu 11y agoAre there any teams, companies, products, etc that I should invite?
- spiderfarmer 11y agoGeorge Hotz
- joshu 11y agoThey are already attending.
- Qworg 11y agoWhat size/stage are you looking for? There are a lot of groups in this space that are pretty commercial already.
- vilya 11y agoNvidia have been promoting something called Roborace, which is running as something to do with the Formula E series. Is this anything to do with that? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roborace https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roborace
- joshu 11y agoNope. Formula E and Roborace are big money and big spectacle. This is more like club racing. If you are building something and have something to test, bring it.
- themodelplumber 11y agoCan there be a minimum average speed past the first lap? Something to preserve the appearance of a race? :)
- joshu 11y agoI am planning for the first event to just be for testing. Some of these folks have never seen a track.
- zachrose 11y agoI'd be interested in a scaled-down version of this, like autonomous RC without the R or the C. YouTube delivers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoHfJ6LEKVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoHfJ6LEKVo
- 0xdada 11y agoThat's the coolest thing I saw all week! A track like that was the first thing I built all by myself when I was a kid.
- Muted 11y agoI agree that would be cool! I actually worked on the earlier version of that as my master's thesis[1]. I think it would be cool to do this in a less controlled environment where the track isn't necessarily preprogrammed. (Currently there is a camera with IR filter above track and an IR light.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-oikffGxOo&nohtml5=False https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-oikffGxOo&nohtml5=False
- tomjacobs 11y agoCount Zippy in! He'll bring the food. http://meetzippy.com http://meetzippy.com Also, the SparkFun Autonomous Vehicle Competition is similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfJHgSNx_vY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfJHgSNx_vY https://avc.sparkfun.com/2014 https://avc.sparkfun.com/2014
- joshu 11y agoyou are welcome to bring it. drop me an email.
- jonah 11y agoI was present at the first DARPA Grand Challenge. It really had that indy racing feel to it. Teams up all night long in the paddock hacking away on their code and hardware. So many different sizes and shapes of vehicles all designed for the same goal. Well-funded, industry-backed university teams up against garage hobbyists. It really felt like the future was open to all comers. Now, we have drone racing, autonomous vehicles that have driven millions of miles, sensors are inexpensive and plentiful, machine learning has advanced massively. I think this could be something cool! (It's possible that the fewer rules, the more innovation it would produce.)
- joshu 11y agoI'm planning to eventually model it off of normal racing - classes will constrain and allow different sets of rules. Fewer rules in some ways, more in others. For example, one class might dictate the car itself, or the sensors to use...
- kriro 11y agoI always thought it would be fun if you'd split the field and have the two groups race in opposite directions at the same time than reverse after n laps. Would probably be more interesting as it would create some interesting autonomous driving problems (oh look a super fast object heads on)
- joshu 11y agoYes! There are a bunch of proposals like this. Obstacles, interfering paths, etc.
- monk_e_boy 11y agoSplit the track into dry, wet, dirt, sand etc.
- dugmartin 11y agoAnother option is figure 8 racing.
- jonah 11y agoIf you don't know about it, School Bus figure 8 racing is an (amazing) thing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUuWWqRBpwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUuWWqRBpwc
- mikeash 11y agoI'm reminded of this delightful story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Lost_the_Second_World_War_and_Helped_Turn_Back_the_German_Invasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Lost_the_Second_World_Wa... Make sure you don't accidentally (or intentionally) set it up so one direction is faster!
- exDM69 11y agoI like it! There's a professional AI racing series being planned at the moment. The FIA Roborace [0] will be travelling along with the Formula E championship races in a year or two (their initial schedule is very ambitious). But it's quite a different beast, a 2200 lbs downforce racing car that should be able to do 100 mph+. But this stuff should be doable by amateurs (with a few bucks in their pockets) or student teams. All the best for OP's effort, I look forward to seeing footage from your races! And if you act quick, you might be able to beat the FIA RoboRace and become the world's first autonomous full-scale racing series! [0] http://roborace.com/ http://roborace.com/
- monk_e_boy 11y agoYou should combine this with robot wars. Allow the cars to make contact with each other.
- SmellyGeekBoy 11y agoOn that note (and I know slightly OT) - I think they're really missing a trick with the new "Robot Wars" by not going fully autonomous. I wonder if any level of autonomy is allowed?
- dr_toolittle 11y agoYou should go ahead and create a company for this, look into insurance, get some basic level of marketing up, etc. Right now it just looks like a website, with no company (nothing in the footer with even an LLC or anything, and "Joshua Schachter is trying to start a low-end autonomous racing series." needs work as an about section), no news section, no press info section, etc. The domain name is great, but you'll need much more to really get it going. For examples: Founding section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASCAR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASCAR Race sanctioning section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_500 History section of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One You could probably pose as an interested historian and get information from each of these organizations about how they are setup and some hoops you might have to go through.
- joshu 11y agoI'm familiar with all of this. It's not necessary to run just a track day. Insurance is dealt with already, etc. There are, however, almost no vehicles actually set up for this, so the first thing that is needed is a place to test the cars and for people doing this to talk to each other.
- asimuvPR 11y agoInteresting! We are doing the same thing but with R/C cars to keep the costs down and make it accessible to more people. R/C cars come in una variety of types and can pretty much run anywhere. Programming and setting up a safe racing environment is much simpler because yoy can have a reusable temporary V2I infrastructure setup for a race. The biggest hurdles right now are the price on some of the sensors required and making a programming environment that is accessible to non-programmers. If this sounds like something you'd like to give access try feel free to drop me access line. This project is in the pre-alpha stage but there is already research underway with live samples (not simulations).
- 6stringmerc 11y agoSlick, thanks for pointing it out. Will be a great area to follow in the future. I think the more who participate in various forms, be it full size or R/C scale, can hopefully advance the knowledge and expertise in the field.