Autonomous Race Cars Hit the Road
Watch how automotive engineers at Clemson University are tasked with designing and creating an autonomous Indy car prototype for a historic race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“The Indy Autonomous Challenge provided our students with an unparalleled experiential learning opportunity,” said Zoran Filipi , chair of the Department of Automotive Engineering at Clemson. “They had a chance to collaborate with multiple teams, including industry partners, on the cutting edge of sensing and autonomy, much as they would in a real-world setting. The whole team did a fantastic job of completing the vehicle on time despite major challenges.”
Transcript
00:00:01 [ music ] I don't have words to describe it, honestly. It's really exhilarating to see pretty unique designs that have come out of the automotive department here making news all around the world. [ music ] This is one of the oldest racetracks, and it's like a dream for any motorsport fan. [ music ] Being at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is definitely an experience, and just being in that place gives me chills. [ music ]
00:00:39 I could see the sensor design. I could look at the lidars, the cameras, the radars, the way we had designed them, the way we had built it here at Clemson, nine times in a row. That was an amazing moment. [ music ] It was an amazing accomplishment to see these cars driving themselves at super-high speeds, at a super famous place. It was just - I, I was wired. I drove all the way straight home, didn't need any caffeine. Just an unbelievable feeling.
00:01:09 [ music ] Started looking at Clemson Automotive. I was completely blown away with what Deep Orange is doing. Not just from the powertrain design or a certain research project on batteries or something like that; or electrification, but a holistic systems view that we take in Deep Orange. That really fascinated me. That's what attracts us to this field. That's our love. That's the passion. So, getting the opportunity to work on an actual race car, that's like a dream come
00:02:00 true for any automotive engineer. We had 39 master's students in the Department of Automotive Engineering as part of the project, which is really what it's all about. It's really about education. You know, we set off to build this historic race car that could essentially break the land speed record at a famous speedway. But it's really about education. So, we wanted to focus on those 39 students and make sure that they had a great educational experience while they were here. And so that's really what Deep Orange is about.
00:02:26 It's really an educational process where we lead them through the, from the initial concept design all the way through the final build of the vehicle and the validation. To face such a challenge in such a short time is something Clemson was uniquely positioned for doing. Because of the experience of the faculty, because of the unique interest of our students, and also because we have this approach to our curriculum, which combines book smarts with literally and figuratively street-smart capabilities in our students positioned us uniquely. After having worked on this vehicle very hard. This project took a lot of time and effort - was very challenging.
00:03:12 But to see it all come together in the end and see the vehicle drive around on the track was an unbelievable experience, one that I will never forget. Getting into automotive motorsports is everyone's dreams, getting to work on a racing car, and that too in an innovative project like this. Moving ahead, I look forward to interacting with other pioneers in the automotive world and see how we can make a difference. [ music ]