Instrumentation

• Enter autonomous racing, a field that’s not just about high-speed competition but also pushing the boundaries of what autonomous vehicles can achieve and improving their safety.
• Similarly, autonomous racing is the modern arena to prove the reliability of autonomous vehicle technology as driverless cars begin to hit the streets.
• I am a computer science professor who studies artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous vehicles, and I lead the Cavalier Autonomous Racing team at the University of Virginia.
• The team competes in the Indy Autonomous Challenge, a global contest where universities pit fully autonomous Indy race cars against each other.

Pint-size beginnings

• The field of autonomous racing didn’t begin with race cars on professional race tracks but with miniature cars at robotics conferences.
• In 2015, my colleagues and I engineered a 1/10 scale autonomous race car.
• F1tenth has also emerged as an engaging and accessible gateway for students to delve into robotics research.

Getting real

• The cars are built on a modified version of the Indy NXT chassis and are outfitted with sensors and controllers to allow autonomous driving.
• Indy NXT race cars are used in professional racing and are slightly smaller versions of the Indy cars made famous by the Indianapolis 500.

• The gritty reality of racing these advanced machines on real racetracks pushes the boundaries of what autonomous vehicles can do.
• My team has shared the world’s first open dataset for autonomous racing, inviting researchers everywhere to join in refining the algorithms that could help define the future of autonomous vehicles.

Crucible for autonomous vehicles

• More than just a technological showcase, autonomous racing is a critical research frontier.
• Autonomous racing is a testbed where competition spurs innovation, collaboration fosters growth, and AI-controlled cars racing to the finish line chart a course toward safer autonomous vehicles.

My research has been funded by National Science Foundation, Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, U.S. Department of Transportation, and Leidos for the period 2018 to 2024. I am also a senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and an Academic Advisory Council member for the Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (PAVE).