Toyota has developed ground-breaking technology yet again, with the Japanese automaker building an autonomous vehicle capable of drifting around obstacles on a closed circuit. Toyota made a self-drifting Supra sports car to help researchers figure out how to improve self-driving systems.
The self-drifting Supra was created by the Toyota Research Institute in collaboration with the Dynamic Design Lab of Stanford University, which had previously shown a demonstration of the DeLorean with similar technology. TRI set up the Supra like a Formula Drift series car, equipping it with automated driving controls and programming it with the track layout and the location of the obstacles on the circuit.
TRI used a new "Nonlinear Model Predictive Control" (NMPC) system, the first of its kind in the world apparently, for its Supra car. NMPC helped guide the car around the track by calculating a whole new trajectory every twentieth of a second.
According to the press release, the NMPC system can "amplify and augment a regular driver's ability to respond to dangerous and extreme situations, helping keep people safe on the road." Avinash Balachandran, the Senior Manager of TRI's Human Centric Driving Research, echoed those sentiments, saying that their goal at the institute is to use advanced technologies that augment and amplify humans and not replace them.
Balachandran added that they are expanding the region in which a car is controllable through this project. He noted that TRI's main goal is to give regular drivers the instinctual reflexes of a professional race car driver, helping them handle the most challenging emergencies to keep people safer on the road.
Getting the car to perform like a Formula Drift entrant was not easy, though, as the engineers needed to balance throttle input, speed, and steering angle, just at the right point to give the vehicle a controlled slide.
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TRI research scientist Jonathan Goh alluded to this point in a video, saying, "When you're drifting, there are a lot of forces at play, and you've got to really understand how every degree of steering angle slows the car down or every additional application of the throttle rotates the car."
TRI completely reworked the Supra to achieve this perfect balance, getting computer-controlled steering, sequential transmission, clutch displacement, throttle, and individual wheel braking for NMPC. TRI modified the Supra for it to have a specification similar to a car used in Formula Drift, installing different safety systems, engine, suspension, transmission, and chassis.
A driver was present during testing as he was the one tasked to push the "Engage" switch on the console and also to act as a safety valve in case the self-drifting maneuvers of the Supra did not go according to plan.
The self-drifting success of the Supra is a major boost for Toyota as it is rumored to launch a new autonomous-capable operating system named Arene for its vehicles in the year 2025.
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