Driverless car completes lap of race track

The driverless racing car contest Roborace has demonstrated a car called DevBot, which it has shown doing a lap of Donnington Park race track in the East Midlands.

On its YouTube page, the announcement reads: "Roborace unveils 'DevBot' ' an intelligent, robotic, driverless, electric development car.  The primary purpose of the DevBot is to allow teams to develop their software and experience the hardware that will be used on the 'Robocar'.

"Unlike the Robocar the DevBot has a cabin that can be driven by a human or a computer allowing teams to fully understand how the car thinks and feels on a racetrack alongside the comprehensive real-time data.  The DevBot is equipped with the same drivetrain, sensors, computation systems and communication technology as the Robocar designed by Daniel Simon which will be revealed later this year in 2016.

Several videos are available, including this one.

Roborace will be a motorsport championship of autonomous electric vehicles and is the first global championship for driverless cars.  The first race is intended to take place during the next Formula E season, on the same circuits as the main championship.  Ten teams, each with two driverless cars, will compete in one-hour races over the full season. All teams will have the same cars, but will develop their own algorithms and artificial intelligence.