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32 of 300 to 1100 nm, and a maximum frame rate (at full resolution) of 37.6 fps. The side radars are Aptiv MRRs with detection ranges out to 40 m and range rates accurate to ±0.3 m at a 30 ms update rate, while the frontal radar is that company’s ESR 2.5, which measures up to 174 m ahead of the vehicle and updates every 50 ms. Positioning, velocity, and attitude (heading, pitch and roll) estimates for navigation and control are produced using VectorNav Technologies’ VN-310 dual antenna GNSS/INS (with two being used for redundancy). Its VN-310 RTK positioning solution is also used, owing to its ability to enable centimetric accuracy. Mitchell says, “VectorNav may be best known as a supplier to aerospace customers, but the robustness and precision it manages at high speeds works great for our racecar. At high speeds and harsh environments, there’s great cross-compatibility between aerospace and road technologies. “As another example, Luminar’s been a great supplier to us and to automotive OEMs, but they’re also working with Airbus on Lidar for helicopters right now. So there’s great potential to be realised by the autonomous and assisted-driving and -piloting worlds talking together.” The Luminar sensor is the Hydra H3, a 1550 nm time-of-flight Lidar with a maximum detection range of 500 m, range precision accurate to 1 cm, a 120 º horizontal FoV and a scan rate of 640 lines/second. “The Lidar range requirement was determined by the need to sense an object on the track in time to perform a double lane change and hence avoid a crash,” explains Dr Prucka. “As the vehicle travels at nearly 85 m/s, the system needs to be able to see about 250 m ahead of the vehicle at all times.” Aaron Jefferson, vice-president of product at Luminar, recounts, “We saw the IAC early on as this perfect incubator for new STEM innovation and graduates, as well as the kind of proving ground for our product. It’s high speed but controlled, and it reveals if or how the units might perform as we believe they do. “Lidar has been around a long time, but until the IAC came along, there’d not been a great degree of trialling Lidars for automotive applications. High-speed mobility in particular was still a highly untested field, so our CEO didn’t hesitate when offered the opportunity to have our technology in the AV-21.” Although the teams are given the same hardware, they are responsible for their own use of the Lidar from a software development standpoint, and how its data is ordered and fused with that coming from the cameras, radars, GNSS and IMU. Mitchell adds though that teams took different approaches early on in terms of whether the Lidar was merely a companion sensor to quantify what the cameras and radars saw, or whether it was a lead sensor driving decision-making. “When we started in October 2021 at IMS, the teams weren’t ready to do passing, but we put large pylons on the track to force them to do obstacle detection and avoidance in a kind of autonomous slalom,” he explains. “That forced them to show they could use Lidar, although theoretically they could October/November 2022 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Luminar began donating its Hydra H3 Lidars early on, seeing the IAC as a game-changing means of testing its automotive products’ capabilities A strut under the forward Lidar, visually reminiscent of the FIA halo, retains the cockpit cover at higher speeds