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PoliMOVE Wins CES 2023 Autonomous Challenge, Sets New Racetrack World Speed Record

The Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) team PoliMOVE from Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and the University of Alabama (Alabama) won the second annual Autonomous Challenge @ CES, reaching max speeds of 180 mph, a new autonomous speed world record for a racetrack. Pushing boundaries of head-to-head autonomous racing, PoliMOVE competed at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway against a field of nine teams from 17 universities spanning six countries all seeking to break autonomous racing records. TUM Autonomous Motorsport from Technische Universität München (Germany) took second place in the heated battle.

The Rules of the IAC Competition consist of a single elimination tournament with multiple rounds of head-to-head passing matches culminating in a championship round. The world’s fastest autonomous race cars, Dallara AV-21s, took turns playing the role of Leader (Defender) and Passer/Follower (Attacker) in front of a global crowd of CES attendees. Passes were attempted at ever-increasing speeds until one or both cars were unable to successfully complete a pass. The rules of the IAC competition required each team to qualify in a high-speed autonomous race car time trial competition determining their seed in the head-to-head passing competition. Six of the nine teams seeking to compete went head-to-head on Saturday.

“Exactly 365 days later, we were so proud and excited to be back in Las Vegas for the Autonomous Challenge @ CES,” said Prof. Sergio Savaresi, team lead of Politecnio di Milano. “Today was a major step forward in speed, in complexity of the race, and in overcoming challenging head-to-head situations. We are very glad for this success, for the contribution of the Indy Autonomous Challenge, and for all the teams in advancing the technology of AI drivers.”

The IAC said it is working to accelerate the pace of innovation for high-speed automation, with a goal to attract the best and brightest minds in the workforce, serving as a platform for students to excel in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and inspire the next generation of innovators. Collaborating with Premier Sponsors ASPIRE, Cisco, and Luminar, the IAC aims to increase safety and performance in not only motorsports, but across all modes of commercial transportation.

To learn more, visit the PoliMOVE website here.  For more background, see three articles on autonomous racing we earlier posted here.

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