Technische Universität München
TUM Is Vice-World Champion in Autonomous Racing
TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH
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NEWS RELEASE
Autonomous Challenge @ CES in Las Vegas:
TUM Is Vice-World Champion in Autonomous Racing
The team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) entered the Autonomous Challenge @CES in Las Vegas as defending champions, seeking to test their limits once again. The team took second place in the race on Friday, employing spectacular overtaking maneuvers in a head-to-head duel with the PoliMOVE team. In the race, TUM’s artificial intelligence (AI)-controlled racing car reached top speeds of up to 270 km/h. The team received a prize of 50,000 US-Dollars for their excellent performance.
"We’re all extremely pleased with the result," says Prof. Lienkamp, Chair of Automotive Technology. "In this race, we were able to show what our autonomous vehicle can do, competing with other vehicles at such extreme speeds. We’ve never gone as fast as we did today. I’m very proud of how well we did in the race. But what really counts is the progress we’ve been able to make. This is a victory for autonomous racing as a whole."
Five university teams entered the Autonomous Challenge @ CES on Friday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Participants had to face the following challenge: two autonomous racing cars were pitted against each other in head-to-head races over the course of several knockout rounds. As you would expect, viewers got to witness numerous overtaking maneuvers and some potentially risky interactions among the racing cars.
Successful Performance Thanks to Bavarian Engineering
The "TUM Autonomous Motorsports" team mastered its first few racing duels without any problems. It was only in the final round against the PoliMOVE team from Milan that the TUM vehicle reached its limits.
"At first, we got close to the opposing vehicle and made some well-controlled overtaking maneuvers. Then we increased the speed bit by bit. However, the interplay of perception, motion planning and control then produced some minor problems, which in total led to the limit being exceeded and ultimately caused the vehicle to spin out," says team leader Phillip Karle. "But I have to say that this was the first time we raced against another racing vehicle at such high speeds. We wanted to test our limits." Exactly how and when the vehicle finally reached its limit still needs to be analyzed, Karle says. "In the end, our attention to detail, the team spirit of our crew and first-class Bavarian engineering made us succeed."
50,000 Dollars in Prize Money
For being this year's runners-up, the team received a prize of 50,000 USD. But money has never been the key motivator for the scientists. "Now, we want to bring the technology to the streets," says Lienkamp.
"To do this, we are making our research open source. Additionally, we have founded the software company “driveblocks”with some former doctoral students led by Alexander Wischnewski. Driveblocks will be in charge of batch production."
TUM President Thomas F. Hofmann congratulated the team: "What a great success! Curiosity and team spirit; consciously dissolving the boundaries between theory and practice; and connecting disciplines and nations – that's what our young talent initiatives in global technology competitions stand for. I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to our team of students, PhD students and postdocs under the leadership of Prof. Markus Lienkamp."
The TUM team entered the race in Las Vegas as defending champions. All the competing teams had already met in Indianapolis in October at the Indy Autonomous Challenge. In that challenge, however, the only thing that counted was the highest driving speed. At that time, "TUM Autonomous Motorsports" was able to win with an average speed of 218 km/h and thus won one million dollars in prize money.
The Autonomous Challenge @ CES was organized by non-profit organization Energy Systems Network, which had also initiated the Indy Autonomous Challenge. The race was a major highlight of the technology trade fair CES, which took place from 5 to 7 January in Las Vegas.
Additional information:
- The "TUM Autonomous Motorsports Team" consists of 15 PhD students and numerous students from the Chair of Automotive Technology and the Chair of Automatic Control. Before winning the Indy Autonomous Challenge in October 2021, the team had participated in the Roborace demonstrations at the Formula-E event in Berlin in 2018 and at the racetrack in Monteblanco, Spain, in 2019.
- TUM press release on the Indy Autonomous Challenge: https://www.tum.de/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/37010
- Press release on the Autonomous Challenge @ CES on the IAC website: https://www.indyautonomouschallenge.com/history-making-autonomous-racecar-challenge-to-be-held-at-ces-2022
- More information on TUM Autonomous Motorsports: https://www.mos.ed.tum.de/en/ftm/main-research/intelligent-vehicle-systems/autonomous-challenge-at-ces/
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Markus Lienkamp
Technische Universität München
Chair of Automotive Technology
lienkamp@tum.de
Phone: +49 (89) 289 – 15344
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europe's leading research universities, with around 600 professors, 48,000 students, and 10,000 academic and non-academic staff. Its focus areas are the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, combined with economic and social sciences. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. It is represented worldwide with the TUM Asia campus in Singapore as well as offices in Beijing, Brussels, Cairo, Mumbai, San Francisco, and São Paulo. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mößbauer have done research at TUM. In 2006, 2012, and 2019 it won recognition as a German "Excellence University." In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany.