Goodwood’s Festival of Speed has always been a venue to showcase the latest automotive technology. This year we saw unbelievable advancements in electrification and autonomy with the record-shattering Volkswagen ID.R and Roborace’s AI-driven DevBot 2.0.
And now this – transatlantic remote vehicle operation.
Portland-based technology startup Designated Driver and Samsung worked together to develop the Samsung S Drone remote-operated vehicle – a specially equipped Lincoln MKZ.
The car’s steering and pedal inputs are connected to a simulator in a remote location. Several Samsung S10 smartphones, positioned on top of the car, provide real-time camera footage to a VR headset with the communication happening over Vodafone’s 5G network.
Professional driver and world drift champion Vaughn Gittin Jr. took control over the car from several miles away, drifting around the arena and making a run on the hill climb course.
If it looks like he’s driving is choppy, that’s not because of the network delay. In fact, the connection was running with less than 100 milliseconds of latency – faster than normal human reactions occur.
Vaughn Gittin was stripped from his senses, except visual and perhaps audio input. All of the normal sensations which help us feel the car, like acceleration, steering and pedal feedback, peripheral visual were not available to him. Given that, he was actually really precise, drifting around just a couple of feet from the presenter and even taking him for a nauseating ride.
Later on, Designated Driver was able to take control over the vehicle form their Portland, Oregon, facility nearly 5,000 miles away from Goodwood, in England, and demonstrate incredible real-time performance.
It’s a huge step for the company. Designated Driver CEO Manuela Papadopol commented:
“We didn’t know. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and we didn’t know what to expect…While transatlantic teleoperation has been done with military drones and surgical robotics, this is a first for a passenger vehicle.”
The application for this technology is to enable support and backup for future autonomous transportation. AI-operated transport will inevitably produce errors and become stuck in highly complicated scenarios on the road, at least in its early years.
The technology will allow a remote operator to take control of the vehicle and resolve the situation, without leaving the passengers stranded or causing a major roadblock.
If all of this sounds uncanny that’s because it is. We’ve gotten to a stage, where all the sci-fi ideas we’ve seen in cyberpunk movies are becoming a reality and it’s downright scary. But also, exciting!
It’s even more impressive once you realize the entire project is using publicly available technology – just a couple of smartphones and a 5G mobile plan.
You can watch the entire show and presentation by Vaughn Gittin Jr. in the video below.