[ExI] Robot cars can do drifting now

[BillK]

Autonomous Mini Rally Car Teaches Itself to Powerslide
By Evan Ackerman Posted 18 May 2016

<http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/autonomous-mini-rally-car-teaches-itself-to-powerslide>

Quotes:
The real magic here is the algorithm that manages AutoRally’s steering
and throttle. Rather than hierarchically splitting control and
planning into two separate problems, Georgia Tech's algorithm combines
them by integrating vehicle dynamics in real-time. Generally, this is
a very computationally intensive approach, but AutoRally can calculate
an optimized trajectory from the weighted average of 2,560 different
trajectory possibilities, all simulated in parallel on to the monster
onboard GPU. Each of these trajectories represents the oncoming 2.5
seconds of vehicle motion, and AutoRally recomputes this entire
optimization process 60 times every second.
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The video is six minutes long and shows some crashes during testing
after the five minute mark.

This should make robot racing cars produce much more human-like driving.
(Though not as many crashes as humans!).  :)


BillK