July 14th, 2024 - Goodwood, UK — On a busy Sunday afternoon, in front of a global audience of motorsport enthusiasts, The Indy Autonomous Challenge’s (IAC) self-driving AV-24 racecar set the record for the fastest autonomous Hillclimb at the Festival of Speed. The AV-24 is piloted by an AI Driver developed by Team PoliMOVE-MSU (Politecnico di Milano and Michigan State University).
The AV-24 performed a series of three runs during the iconic festival. The record was broken during their third and final run up the Goodwood Hill where the racecar reached a top speed of 111.2 mph (179 kph) and a finish time of 66.37 secs. The record-setting run can be watched here. The previous record has been held by Roborace since 2019 when their “DevBot 2.0” autonomous car clocked a 66.96 sec time at a top speed of 101.16 mph (162.8 kph).
Goodwood is known for its unforgiving narrow course, lined with hay bells and limited run-off space. Attempting an autonomous hill climb at the Festival of Speed required absolute control of grip and slippage from the AV-24’s Bridgestone racing tires as well as precision mapping and localization in a GPS limited environment resulting in a higher than usual reliance on the AV-24’s Luminar Iris lidars.
The IAC and PoliMOVE-MSU teams worked closely with Bridgestone’s tire engineers to optimize performance ahead of the Hillclimb including traveling to Bridgestone’s European Technical Center and European Proving Grounds in Rome. The team also had the unique chance to explore each step of tire production and test how impactful tire performance is on track.
Paul Mitchell, Chairman and President of the IAC: “For three years, the IAC has been pushing the boundaries of high-speed autonomy and setting new records along the way. The Goodwood Hillclimb is a historic backdrop with huge crowds and a global audience that is now aware of the potential of self-driving vehicles to be safely deployed on roads in the future.”
Professor Sergio Savaresi, PoliMOVE-MSU Team Principal: “This challenge represents an important milestone for autonomous mobility. This weekend we overcame significant challenges posed by a complicated track and temperamental weather patterns. Thanks to the exceptional work and skills implemented by our engineering team and tire performance ensured by our Bridgestone racing tires, we made history by showing the public that safe and high-speed vehicular autonomy is possible even in adverse conditions. Our record at the Goodwood Festival of Speed will inspire confidence in future autonomous driving applications.”
Sara Correa, Chief Marketing Officer for Bridgestone in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) added, “Bridgestone is proud to support the PoliMOVE-MSU team in this incredible achievement at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2024. We are committed to partnering with the IAC and its inspiring student engineers to continue testing and improving autonomous technologies in record-setting runs like this and beyond. Motorsports are part of Bridgestone’s DNA, always have been and always will be. And what really matters is that we take the learnings from experiences like this and apply them to the sustainable mobility solutions we develop for society and our customers.”
Visuals and footage including of the IAC’s Autonomous Hillclimb can be found here.
