Tandem drifting Toyotas show how AI can support drivers on slippery roads

Toyota Research Institute (TRI) and Stanford are hooking up AI to two Supras that are doing Formula Drift-style tandem driving — but the researchers are after something more crucial than style points.

In the press releaseAvinash Balachandran, TRI’s vice president of interactive driving, says autonomous drifting of two cars in tandem is a “milestone” and has “far-reaching implications for building advanced safety systems” in future passenger vehicles.

In addition to the impressive show that you can see it in the videoProfessor Chris Gerdes, who is co-director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford University, says the physics of drifting are similar to how cars behave on snow or ice. Balachandran adds that the technology can kick in just in time to deal with a driver losing control, just like experienced drifters do. The system can solve and re-solve the problem up to 50 times a second to decide what steering, throttle and brake commands work best in the conditions.

The dueling, drifting modified GR Supras exploit AI that learns from every trip on the track. TRI developed the lead car’s controls, while Stanford’s Engineering Department created AI vehicle models and algorithms for the chase car designed to copy (and not collide with) the other. The vehicles communicate via Wi-Fi and were tuned by GReddy and Toyota Racing Development. Self-drifting cars are nothing fresh at Stanford, by the way; a group of researchers built a DeLorean with that capability in 2015.