IAC's simulation competition gave teams from around the world the opportunity to race together in a simulation environment at the F1 circuit in Monza. Simulation is a very important tool in most development processes, both because it saves on costly track and vehicle time and because it provides quick feedback on individual code elements and parameter settings, as many iteration cycles are performed in a short time.
IAC - 3-round sim competition
In the first challenge, we had to drive our car 2 full laps in the simulation environment in a self-driving mode, with just ourselves on the track, as fast as we could. There were 18 teams in this round and we finished in 5th place. In the video below, ForzaETH (carbon), CODE19-Luddy AI (red) and us (green) are "racing", with the individually run laps overlaid.
In the second challenge, we were no longer on our own, this time our algorithm was now competed against NPC cars. We are very proud to have been on the podium in this round and to have achieved a very respectable 3rd place out of the 11 teams that started. A video of this was also made, in double acceleration:
We also successfully completed the 3rd challenge, where we competed against the algorithm developed by the other teams, so the autonomous "pilots" had to watch each other's driving movements on the track. The final results were made public at the CES exhibition in Las Vegas, which we followed remotely. Overall, we finished in 4th place. In the video below you can watch a summary of Challenge 3:
We are looking forward to the live autonomous competition in Abu Dhabi in the A2RL series, where the experience gained in the IAC simulator competition will be very valuable.
