Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Roborace self-driving ‘DevBot’ makes public debut

File_000-2

Roborace’s autonomous development car, the ‘DevBot’, made its public debut at Donington Park on Wednesday following collective Formula E testing.

Roborace was unveiled last November as a driverless support series for Formula E, advocating autonomous driving technology and aiming to further its development.

A video was released earlier this week showing the ‘DevBot’ - a modified, electric Ginetta LMP3 car - on-track at Silverstone before being brought to Donington Park on Wednesday for its public debut.

The ‘DevBot’ completed three laps under human control before being parked up on the main straight and left to pull away autonomously.

After a short wait, the ‘DevBot’ peeled away and completed the majority of a lap on its own before coming to a stop at the final corner. A circuit announcement said that the marshals stopped the car as a safety precaution.

The debate about autonomous racing has been fierce since Roborace was announced, with many believing it to go against the principle of motorsport and the human involvement.

When asked about Roborace earlier this year by NBC Sports, FIA president Jean Todt said that autonomous racing could not be anything more than a showcase and presentation of what the technology is capable of.

“Our members are human beings. It’s drivers, it’s competitors,” Todt said.

“Our members on the sport side have a racing licence, so we don’t give a racing licence to a robot.

“[Roborace] is a demonstration. It’s a kind of cloud in a global organization. We do a lot of demonstrations.”

Follow @LukeSmithF1