Look – no driver

WHO needs a driver?

Audi demonstrated its latest ‘piloted driving’  car The Audi RS 7  with a lap on the Grand Prix track in Hockenheim – at racing speed, without a driver.

It took the car just slightly over two minutes to complete a lap on the Grand Prix track– piloted with high precision and accuracy to within centimetres.in the finale of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) meeting.

“The top performance by the Audi RS 7 today substantiates the skills of our development team with regard to piloted driving at Audi,” said Prof.Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, Board Member for Technical Development at AUDI AG. “The derivations from series production, particularly in terms of precision and performance, are of great value for our further development steps.”

Th technology uses specially corrected GPS signals to see where the car is on the track. This GPS data is transmitted to the vehicle via WiFi according to the automotive standard and redundantly via high-frequency radio. In parallel to this, 3D cameras in the car film the track, and a computer program compares the cameras’ image information against a data set stored on board. This is what makes it possible for the technology pioneer to orient itself on the track within centimetres.

Piloted driving is one of the most important development fields at Audi: The first successful developments were achieved 10 years ago. The test results continually flow into series development. The latest test runs at the physical limit are providing the Audi engineers with insights for the development of automatic avoidance functions in critical driving situations, for example.

Driver assistance systems from Audi are already making driving more relaxed and better controlled. These systems’ highest level of development can be experienced in the updated Audi A6 and Audi A7 Sportback model series. The offerings include Audi side assist, Audi active lane assist, and adaptive cruise control with Stop&Go function including Audi pre sense front.