At the DTM season finale, the Audi RS 7 piloted driving concept completed a lap on the Grand Prix track in Hockenheim at racing speed, without a driver.

Audi scored yet another major success in the development of piloted driving: Before the season finale of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), it took the Audi RS 7 up to its physical limit, with no driver, to complete a lap on the Grand Prix track in Hockenheim. The feat was done in slightly over two minutes.

“The top performance by the Audi RS 7 substantiates the skills of our development team with regard to piloted driving at Audi”, said Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Board Member for Technical Development at Audi AG. “The derivations from series production, particularly in terms of precision and performance, are of great value for our further development steps.”

For orientation on the track, it uses specially corrected GPS signals. This GPS data is transmitted to the vehicle via WiFi according to the automotive standard and redundantly via high-frequency radio. In parallel to this, 3D cameras in the car film the track, and a computer program compares the cameras’ image information against a data set stored on board. This is what makes it possible for the technology pioneer to orientate itself on the track within centimeters.

Audi believes that piloted driving is one of the most important development fields - the first successful developments were achieved ten years ago. The latest test runs at the physical limit are providing the Audi engineers with insights for the development of automatic avoidance functions in critical driving situations, for example.

Experts from Volkswagen Group Research, the Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) and Stanford University - both in California - are supporting Audi as partners in the further development of piloted systems.