Robo tire shredding?
Don't look now, but the robo cars are coming. Automakers are racing to develop fully autonomous driving technology, including Toyota, but now, Japan's biggest car brand is attacking the problem from a new angle by programming this fifth-generation Toyota Supra to drift around a track.
According to the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), this Supra is the first fully autonomous drifting vehicle ever made. The group hopes to develop autonomous drifting technology that can avoid accidents caused by obstacles or sudden loss of grip.
Does this mean we'll soon see our favorite drifters replaced by algorithms? Not a chance. Not only is this technology only in its fledgling state, Toyota says it intends to use it to "amplify" the driver's skills, rather than replace the human factor outright.
"Through this project, we are expanding the region in which a car is controllable, with the goal of giving regular drivers the instinctual reflexes of a professional race car driver to be able to handle the most challenging emergencies and keep people safer on the road," said Senior Manager of TRI's Human Centric Driving Research, Avinash Balachandran.
Essentially, the autonomous drifting tech could be useful when confronted with a driving situation that only a professional drifter could safely navigate.
"When faced with wet or slippery roads, professional drivers may choose to 'drift' the car through a turn, but most of us are not professional drivers," said TRI Research scientist, Jonathan Goh. "That's why TRI is programming vehicles that can identify obstacles and autonomously drift around obstacles on a closed track."
Essentially, Toyota's new tech incorporates drift-specific techniques and insights to "[extend] the vehicle's operational domain beyond the point of tire saturation." Properly calibrated, the onboard computers can calculate a new vehicle trajectory every twentieth of a second, thus keeping the rear end out and the tires spinning while avoiding danger.
The Toyota Supra used in TRI's experiments is equipped with autonomous driving equipment that operates the vehicle controls with a good degree of granularity, including the throttle, clutch displacement, transmission, and braking down to individual wheels.
It's impressive stuff, and seeing the autonomous Toyota Supra drift around a racetrack without any inputs from the driver is a little spooky. Clearly, Toyota is onto something here, and while TRI is claiming to develop this stuff for safety's sake, we can't help but think about the fun we'd have with "Pro Drift Mode" activated.
Check out TRI's autonomous Toyota Supra drifting skills in the video below, and make sure to stay tuned for more tuner car tech stuff coming down the pipe very soon.
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