Roborace, the world’s first motorsports competition for human + machine teams, has offered the first look at the new competition vehicle for Season Alpha at the WebSummit conference in Lisbon, Portugal. The new race car, dubbed DevBot 2.0, is somewhat similar to the Robocar in technology, but with the addition of a cockpit to accommodate a human driver. You may remember Robocar from July when it made the first ever fully autonomous hillclimb at Goodwood Festival of Speed, relying only on sensors and artificial intelligence.
For the uninitiated, DevBot is a development car with the primary purpose of allowing teams to develop their software and experience the hardware that will be used on the “Robocar.” However, unlike the Robocar the DevBot has a cabin that can be driven by a human or a computer allowing teams to fully understand how the car thinks and feels on a racetrack alongside the comprehensive real-time data, explains Roborace.
Roborace DevBot 2.0 will only be launched in New Year. After which, teams will be using this intelligent race car to develop their autonomous driving systems by having professional drivers teaching the AI how to improve, and at the same, the drivers will be able to learn from the AI on how to up their own performance. In other words, Roborace and DevBot are the future of motorsports. Just think of it as the motorsports version of Real Steel, or something along the line.
All images courtesy of Roborace.
