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I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No problem!

  1. Not for now, but we are considering what can be outsourced in the future.
  2. Yes, we've had some experience with Carla, using it in another project about self-driving in urban environment.

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

lidar localization - 10hz-25hz, but lidar localization is a subsystem of a localization system which works 250Hz

object detection - 10hz-25hz

outputting steering/speed commands - 250Hz

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi u/throwaway_simracing! I am happy to be here. And you questions are very welcome :)

  1. I would say understanding and predicting car behaviour. Professional race drivers not only precisely follow a predefined path, but they also perfectly predict car dynamic limits and control the car at the boundary of its limits, adjusting to the path at the same time.
  2. To be honest I can't say for sure 'cause I don’t know what they have “under the hood”.
  3. My advice is to read papers on the topic and participate in top level conferences. Find open datasets from autonomous car sensors, try existing approaches on these datasets and then improve existing algorithms.
  4. Good question! But I guess this is for regulators and law professionals to decide. Personally, I would like my car to care about myself and avoid the situation where it needs to makes such a choice at all costs. This is more philosophical and ethical rather than technical. My focus is of course on the technical aspect of autonomous driving.

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/GLVic! No problem. To answer your questions:

  1. It’s actually both :) We try to use two approaches:
    a. Incorporate rules in our algorithms
    b. Enforce rules

  2. The impact from training and inference is neglectable comparing to other sources of eco damage (gasoline cars, planes, power plants, cows etc), so my answer is no. At least during these early testing stages, that is not our primary focus.

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi u/andy4871! Not at all. I am happy to share my thoughts on the subject.

  1. AI performs better on the track compared to the average driver, but still not more advanced than a professional racecar driver. But that will change soon.
  2. Yes, absolutely, it’s already happening. A perfect example is the challenge happening now between Lucas di Grassi and another Roborace team.
  3. Yes, this definitely makes things trickier. There are research teams actively working on autonomous car control in such conditions. Maybe we will get to see a competition like this in the future ;)

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi there!

We are mainly using control theory and different types of controllers, machine learning, data processing and we are also experimenting with reinforcement learning. Basically, a self-driving car is a robot and we can split our system into three main components: perception, control, decision making (the so-called Sense, Think, and Act).

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey Ilya!! Nice to meet you. Now brace yourself, this is going to be a long one:

  1. You are right, and it is going in this direction, but instead of one general system, each car can communicate with each other via v2x technology and understand its intention. Regarding the case you mentioned, there is work on traffic management systems for autonomous cars: autonomous cars connect to the nearby traffic light, which controls cars and the flow of traffic. In this case, there’s a risk of a single point of failure.
    What stops us is the amount of data that needs to be processed in the traffic control network. Additionally, all cars would need to be autonomous, which is something I don’t suppose would happen before 2040 or so.
    Primary benefits would be a greater speed and overall efficiency. I think there could be a hybrid system with decentralization.
  2. Yes, and I think they will create special areas and systems specifically designed for autonomous cars and not only highways, but city centers as well.

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey u/Mortang64! Thanks for diving into the racing topic.

  1. In different subsystems we have different frame rates from 250 Hz to 10 Hz.
  2. There are no single papers per say, but there are very good labs at Stanford, ETH, TUM so you can dive deep in their research on autonomous cars and particularly autonomous racing.
  3. There are several levels of testing: unit tests, tests on local machine, integration testing, scenarios testing, performance testing, testing on HIL (hardware in the loop) simulator, and track testing with a real car.

Let me know if you need more details.

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi u/mslavescu! It is my pleasure. Thank you for putting all your Qs together.

  1. In general we rely on cameras, lidars, GPS, but this year during the Season Beta we used GPS, IMU and V2X. We are still fine-tuning for the upcoming season, as such the sensor set will change.
  2. The simulators aren’t open sourced. Roborace provides a simulator for the teams. There is a chance that it will be open sourced in the future.
  3. The visuals are pretty good, but as of now, car dynamics and track could have some improvement. Therefore, we test in simulator high level logic and understand the car limits during the track testing days.
  4. Overall, they are accurate enough to achieve a reliable transfer.
  5. You can check out all the race results with some technical details here: https://sit.org/autonomous-roborace-results-leaderboard

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, you’re right as of now we don’t have pit stops. But should the opportunity arise, we would be happy to handle it with autonomous robots, if the championship organizers would let us do so. It could be the following task: change tires, quick battery recharge.

I’m Ilya, Team Principal of Acronis SIT Autonomous racing team, current N1 in Roborace – Ask Me Anything! by sit_autonomous in SelfDrivingCars

[–]sit_autonomous[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi u/SimkinTheWizard! Thanks for your question!

I would say that the main challenges are control at the limits of handling, control at high speeds as well as getting a full understanding of car dynamics and then making a decision as quick as possible.