(upbeat rock music)
- [Narrator] By now, the world is well aware
that self-driving cars are getting closer
to becoming a reality.
However, not everyone has heard
about self-driving race cars.
The up-and-coming motor sport known as autonomous
racing is currently being led by Roborace,
a series that features all-electric self-driving race cars.
The competition is designed to provide each race team
with identical cars, featuring the same powertrain
and chassis, as well as the same basic self-driving
software; however, the teams are responsible for customizing
and improving the algorithms that ultimately control
the cars and allow them to navigate multiple
racetracks on their own.
While fans of other racing series fawn
over world-class drivers, in Roborace it's programmers
who are the real stars.
With the inaugural season now underway,
we caught up with Roborace's chief strategy officer,
Bryn Balcombe, to get the inside scoop on everything
racing fans need to know about the company
and this unique new motor sport.
- Roborace is a completely new type of motor sport
that we've been developing for the last 2 1/2 years,
focusing on the mega-trends that are happening
in the automotive industry, so electric, connected,
and autonomous technologies.
How does motor sport play a role in developing
that for the future, showcasing the technology,
and building trust with the public.
So this year, we're running something called Season Alpha,
and Season Alpha is our experimental year,
where we're looking at lots of different formats,
lots of different types of competition.
The main thing is to drive the advancement in the software.
That's what we're focused on this year.
So anything that we find creates competition
between the teams and moves that software development
further forward, that's what we're focused on.
- [Narrator] Roborace currently features two vehicles
in its fleet: the Robocar, and DevBot,
the company's development robot that serves as a platform
for testing new technology and software.
Unlike Robocar, though, DevBot has room
for a driver as well.
- We're focused now on DevBot
and using that as the development platform,
but the target is to be able to take that software
and use it in Robocar.
We're running with DevBot 2.0 in Season Alpha,
which gives us the opportunity to use humans
within those competition formats.
In previous years where we've done human
versus machine competitions, some that we're looking
at this year experiment with having the human
in for part of the race and AI for the second part,
some are pure AI races only.
So when we've done human versus machine competitions,
it's been really interesting,
number one, to see the human's reaction,
that they want to beat the robot.
There's that competitive element there.
And then, number two, from the AI teams,
who really want to get as close to
and then eventually beat the human drivers.
So they're probably about 5-10% away at the moment,
before we get to the human level of performance.
- [Narrator] So what kind of tech allows these impressive
machines to drive on their own?
- So we've got exactly the same types of sensors
and computer that you'll find in the autonomous-vehicle
industry that's being developed by companies
such as Waymo, for example.
So we're running lidar, radar,
machine-vision cameras, sonar.
We have an accurate GPS inertial system
that's so accurate you could do missile guidance with it.
So we have export restrictions on those products,
some of those products.
But yeah, it's exactly the same
as you would use on the road.
And that's really key for us is that the technology
that's developed in competition here at our racetrack
transfers to that road industry.
I think it's really interesting:
Roborace itself is actually
a media and entertainment business.
That's what our focus is.
We've chosen an incredibly hard genre of media
and entertainment to get into and had to design
our own vehicles, but it's really that that's where
we're gonna see the biggest changes coming.
Yes, these vehicles are amazing,
but what we can do with that for media
and entertainment experiences will blow people's minds.
(upbeat music)