Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs The Artificial Intelligence Driving Autonomous (AIDA) project aims to reshape the future of mobility. AIDA, developed by researchers at Politecnico di Milano, is aiming to exploit autonomous driving technology to create a service to move people around cities, avoiding some of the common hurdles.AIDA worked with Maserati to prove the concept, creating two autonomously driven MC20 sports cars, a coupe and a convertible. The MC20 Coupe set a record for a robo-driven vehicle with a top speed of 177 miles per hour (mph) at a runway at the Piacenza-San Damiano Air Base in Italy in November.AIDA has a multi-pronged approach to the future of autonomous driving. It focuses on four main areas of research for the future: high-speed driving and racing, city life and commercial purposes.”The project was born with an idea about the need to bring a new way to move people around Italian cities, in an efficient and more sustainable way. We started [by] participating in the 1000 Mille Miglia race to help us in gaining credibility and to show off our technological skills of creating a robo-driver for autonomous driving on production vehicles,” Politecnico di Milan University and project lead Professor Savaresi Sergio Matteo told Newsweek.
AI-driven Maserati MC20 on track. An Italian university partnered with Maserati working on artificial intelligence-powered drivers.
AI-driven Maserati MC20 on track. An Italian university partnered with Maserati working on artificial intelligence-powered drivers.
Maserati
The MC20 Cielo (convertible) prototype built by the AIDA team uses most of the same technologies as the record-breaking autonomous MC20 Coupe (two lidar sensors, four cameras, four radar sensors and four GPS antennas), but the convertible has been improved for urban road duty. The Coupe is for high performance and very high speeds, AIDA says. Both are far beyond the customer versions, which only feature radar.AIDA is also working on an autonomous setup for a Fiat 500.The team plans to do attempt a new high-speed record with an autonomous MC20 Coupe at Cape Canaveral at the end of February.All of its high-performance research and development is leading the team toward autonomous technologies that will move people around dense cities at normal speeds, AIDA says. The U.S. the most vehicle-dense country and Italy isn’t far behind. AIDA plans to start its efforts in Europe.It will start by easing multimodal transportation first at its home base in Milan, Italy and then other dense cities, equipping existing models with AIDA technology so they can run autonomously.AIDA envisions these autonomous vehicles making daily/hourly runs between small cities and the nearest train or bus station. When they are moving autonomously and a confusing situation comes up, the car will pull over until a remote operator can take over the driving duties temporarily.
AI-driven Maserati MC20 front view. The special MC20 features radar, LIDAR, sensors and cameras.
AI-driven Maserati MC20 front view. The special MC20 features radar, LIDAR, sensors and cameras.
Maserati
The team has put their bodies where their money is, evaluating the vehicle while using two on-board computers designs specifically for real-time AI computing. “We’ve ridden in it almost every day for testing and to see if our algorithms work. It can handle urban, suburban and highway scenarios,” said Matteo.In addition to technology development time, AIDA is conscious that humans also need time to grow interested in adapting autonomous technology into their everyday lives. They also need to be willing to share vehicles, something that is less popular today than futurists predicted a decade ago.Until full acceptance happens, AIDA believes a proper middle-term solution could give users the ability to call the vehicle and make it come to them autonomously. A human could take over the driving and the human has made their trip, the vehicle would return to an autonomous driving mode and move to pick up somebody else or go charge itself.
