News – Audi’s new piloted driving technology

Autonomous cars? Audi knows it as piloted driving. By Jerrica Leong

We were just talking about cars that are way too smart that they can drive on their own in Friday Fives. The Audi A7 Sportback made our list for its autonomous parking that didn’t require the driver to be in the car at all. Well that was a few years ago, this year Audi has pioneered the RS 7, a race car, to be able to drive itself, known as piloted driving at Audi, around the Hockenheim circuit!

Before the season finale of the DTM series, Audi took the opportunity to showcase their new development of piloted driving. The latest technology pioneer was running up to its physical limit with no driver. Sure enough the RS 7 piloted driving concept took to the Grand Prix track in Hockenheim and recorded a time slightly over two minutes.

Audi’s Board Member for Technical Development Professor Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg proudly stated that the top performance RS 7 substantiates the skills of the Audi development team with regard to piloted driving at Audi.

The RS 7 uses specially corrected GPS signals to find its orientation on the track. The GPS data is transmitted to the vehicle via WIFI according to the automotive standard and redundantly via high-frequency radio. Working parallel to the GPS transmission, 3D cameras in the car films the track and a computer programme compares the cameras image information against a data set stored on board. This is how the RS 7 orients itself on the race track within centimetres.

Driver assistance systems from Audi are already giving drivers a more relaxed and better controlled driving experience. And Audi hopes to continue pioneering more systems that would bring driving to a whole new level.