Attention, autonomous-car enthusiasts: Audi has developed the world's sportiest piloted driving vehicle. The RS 7 piloted driving concept car will demonstrate its dynamic potential and driverless capabilities for the first time on the Hockenheimring during the season finale of the German Touring Car Masters (DTM) championship.
With 560 horsepower and a top speed of 305 km/h, the Audi RS7 piloted driving concept car uses specially corrected GPS signals for orientation on the track. Accurate down to a centimetre, these differential GPS data are transmitted to the vehicle via WLAN according to the automotive standard and redundantly via high-frequency radio.
Parallel to this, 3D camera images are compared in real time against graphical information stored on board. The system searches in each of the countless individual images for several hundred known features, such as building patterns behind the track, which it then uses as additional positioning information.
"We are pressing forward with one of the most important trends in the automotive world with our technical solutions for piloted driving," says Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Board Member for Technical Development at Audi AG. "The utter fascination of this development will be put on display at the DTM race in Hockenheim. A lap time of just over two minutes and lateral acceleration of up to 1.1 g speak for themselves."
The lap by the RS 7 piloted driving concept car can be followed via live stream (http://www.audimedia.tv/en). The broadcast begins at 12:45 p.m. on October 19th, 2014.