UH driverless race car team competes in Las Vegas | News, Sports, Jobs

Ranked the top team in the U.S., the UH AI Racing Team, whose car is seen here during the Indy Autonomous Challenge in November, will be competing in the Autonomous Challenge @ CES in Las Vegas on Saturday. — Photo courtesy of UH

A driverless race car team that originated at the University of Hawaii Maui College is heading into a competition Saturday as the top-ranked U.S. team.

Fresh off its second-place finish at the Indy Autonomous Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway on Nov. 11, the UH AI Racing Tech team is competing in the Autonomous Challenge @ CES (Consumer Electronics Show) for the second year in a row. UH AI Racing Tech is one of nine teams from six countries representing 18 universities racing in the single-elimination event Saturday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The event will begin with time trials and elimination rounds at 8 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time. The semifinal and final rounds will be broadcast live from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at www.indyautonomouschallenge.com.

After the time trials, the remaining teams will race head-to-head, reaching speeds of more than 190 mph.

“The team has established itself as a serious competitor in this competition,” UH AI Racing Tech Team Principal Gary Passon said in a UH news release Thursday. “We had a few things break our way in the last race. But, races are races and so if you’re not in it, you can’t win it. That gave us a lot of confidence coming into the Las Vegas event. We’re looking forward to remaining a contender in this event and we made some great progress between the two competitions.”

Among the six-team field in the Indy Autonomous Challenge on Nov. 11, UH AI Racing Tech lost to PoliMOVE out of Italy, which also won last year’s Autonomous Challenge @ CES. Teams competed at speeds topping 140 mph despite unseasonably cold and wet weather conditions with track temperatures dropping to near freezing. Passon said the team is looking forward to better conditions in Vegas.

“Not only do we have to go fast and qualify — the fastest qualifier gets the best position which is very traditional for racing — but then the competition itself is a head-to-head passing competition where we pass and repass each other and increase the speed in each round until one car cannot accomplish that pass,” Passon explained of the format.

UH AI Racing Tech was launched out of a spring 2020 UH-Maui College autonomous vehicle technology class. It started small from scaled vehicles to go-kart-sized and now to full-sized racing cars. Since its inception, UH AI Racing Tech has added students and faculty from UH-Manoa’s College of Engineering, the University of California-San Diego, Carnegie Mellon University and UC Berkeley.

“These aren’t things that you go to Best Buy and buy,” Passon said. “This is the stuff that nobody has done before so that’s really what the prize is for us — having the opportunity to do that and as well as getting recognized for doing that.”

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