Science

TU Delft and MIT student teams jointly build racing robot

The TU Delft Formula Student racing team is joined by MIT students in the driverless racing competition. It takes 3 computers to replace one pilot.

Team managers Luke Kulik (MIT) and Rutger van den Berg (TU Delft). (Photo: Yannick Schulz)

The DUT racing team, has developed a new branche called ‘Driverless’, or FSD (Formula Student Driverless) for short. The FSD team will extend last year’s electric racing car DUT-18 with an intricate web of sensors, computers, software and actuators that will take control of the car, basically rendering it into a racing robot.


“The electric competition is about improving the last percentages,” says TU Delft team manager Rutger van den Berg. “But in the driverless competition, we’re still working on solving the big things.”


“The biggest thing is probably state estimation,” says MIT team captain Luke Kulik. “Making sure the car knows where it is and how it moves, making all the sensors fast enough and getting all systems talking to each other.”