Driverless NASCAR crash tested at 130mph using robots

To test the safety of the vehicle and the impact on the driver in an accident on the racetrack, a test vehicle was driven at high-speed to a pre-programmed course into the banking wall at Talladega Superspeedway.

Sensors were fitted to the car and a crash test dummy was used to create valuable and accurate data that could then be used for crash simulation validation.

Craig Hoyt, AB Dynamics Business Development Manager said: “The challenge was trying to get this extremely complex machine to do a very precise test without a human driver piloting the car. AB Dynamics’ robots allowed NASCAR to use a fully running race car and conduct the test at a real racetrack at real race speeds. There is no better data than replicating crash tests in a real environment and our robots enable us to do that accurately and repeatedly.”

The driving robots used included AB Dynamics’ SR60 for steering, CBAR600 for pedals and the Gearshift robot – these robots are unobtrusive so didn’t interfere with the positioning or results from the dummy.

The test requirements

The race car was driven at 130mph to a precise impact point into what is called the SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barrier, hitting it at an angle of 24°.

The steering, pedal and shifting robots were used to control the vehicle’s speed and direction. AB Dynamics’ path following software provided inputs to the robots which used pre-recorded information and geometric GPS data to accurately follow a predetermined path. This meant the vehicle was positioned to within 2cm of the impact point, hitting the wall at precisely 130.015mph and was within 1° of the prescribed angle.

“Our robots are largely used for the development of passenger and commercial vehicles and are regularly used for durability, misuse and driver assistance system testing,” said Hoyt. “This is one of the highest speed crash tests we have ever conducted, and the robots only suffered minor damage. It really is a testament to the safety of the vehicle, the barriers, and the ruggedness of our products.”

John Patalak, Managing Director, Safety Engineering of NASCAR said: “This is a truly innovative way to test the safety of vehicles in motorsport. The data we obtained from the test was extremely important and was not possible to get from any crash test facilities at the time. The test provided valuable information for correlation with our computer crash simulations and confirmed that the predicted vehicle impact performance from the simulation was duplicated in this real-world crash test.”