Could a computer drive an F1 car around a track faster than Hamilton?

The computer would require programming and would have to be extremely complex to even begin to 'understand' grip levels, balance and so on. I think with current tech, Hamilton would be faster.
 
could a computer really feel a car on the edge and react accordingly or would it over react etc.
Personally I'd say a top driver would be faster.
 
Well, if you think of something like a Segway, that adjusts its position something like 100,000 times a second for balance, so there are elements of this sort of problem that can be dealt with.

I think the weak link would come in the sensing of things, rather than responding to things. While a computer might be able to respond quicker, more accurately and more frequently to a stimulus, it's going to be a hell of a job to put all the things that a driver experiences with his eyes, his ears, his hands on the wheel, his arse on the seat, his feet on the pedals... into terms that a computer can interpret.
 
Top Gear did something a few years back with a BMW 3 series, I think. They had to drive the car around the "track" to program the physical layout of it, and it then proceeded to drive around.

Edit: Here it is (I think - based on title alone):

 
If you got data from 10+ different drivers, and split a lap into 10+ sectors, it's likely that each drivers driving style would be best suited to certain parts of the track. Could a computer ever 'hook up' all those perfect sectors by 'replaying' the inputs from the drivers? It'd be quite an interesting project.

I mean, I know it's 1000 times less complicated, but the marine GPS system on our boat is quite incredible how it accurately it can sail a track. If you sail a route around some buoys once, save the track, then get the autohelm to follow the track it will do it perfectly and you just have to adjust the sails. However - no idea if GPS would be accurate enough to perfectly kiss a kerb. F1 drivers hit them with mm accuracy, GPS at best is a few cm right?
 
normal GPS is actually purposefully innacurate, military devices remove the added error layer and can actually be accurate down to 2-3cm, at least thats what i remember from a Racal contract I worked on :)
 
Depends on how you interpret drive.

If the computer has to work everything out then no, nothing can compute on this scale like the human brain can.

If you program the car to go around the track as fast as possible then I am sure it could do it. But it couldn't react to anything, other drivers, changing conditions, would all require extra programming.
 
It isn't impossible, of course. Computationally, operating a car isn't particularly difficult. You could quite easily build a table of conditions so that with an input of exact tyre temperature and a swathe of measured track parameters you could calculate (or at least look up) the available traction. There will be a mathematical way of calculating tyre wear based on those factors too and it can all be calculated or referenced on the fly...

Computers can change gear faster, brake more accurately etc than humans can already (hence SMG-type gearboxes, ABS, Traction Control etc).

'Racing' would be impossible of course, there is no way there would be any significant difference between the mathematical best braking points etc between cars enough that a pass could be made, I dont think.
 
Will Gill said:
but cars drive themselves in gran turismo, whats the difference?

:p
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Realisticly none, just placed in a virtual world.

If the same aspects had to be put in place then I can't see why a computer can't take a car around a track 'on the edge' would take a hell of a lot of money and engineering mind you.
 
Begbie said:
Realisticly none, just placed in a virtual world.

If the same aspects had to be put in place then I can't see why a computer can't take a car around a track 'on the edge' would take a hell of a lot of money and engineering mind you.
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??? There's every difference! It's no challenge at all to make something drive around a virtual environment, because the exact parameters are all programmed into the game. How would a computer react to a little more moisture than it expected? Slideways?
 
taximike said:
??? There's every difference! It's no challenge at all to make something drive around a virtual environment, because the exact parameters are all programmed into the game. How would a computer react to a little more moisture than it expected? Slideways?
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DSC manages with a far more limited scope and comparatively modest budget (compared to doing it for an F1 car, of course)
 
yea maybe thwe question is actually more of a geeky one than the question actually posed:

'Could a computer be programmed to lap faster than an F1 driver'

forget the lewis hamilton rhetoric, forget whether a computer can or cannot do this or that. what it comes down to is programming, can they code something to react quickly enough and to drive quickly enough?
 
There's little difference, hook up those on screen outputs to a steering wheel and pedals and you've got the fundementals. This is completely possible.

With scientists knowing the apex's to the nearest mm and maintaining speed through corners to the nearest 0.1mph. it's stupid to think hamilton could win in a time trial.

The time it'd take to build the automated car? Per track? years imo.
 
gord said:
Depends on how you interpret drive.

If the computer has to work everything out then no, nothing can compute on this scale like the human brain can.

If you program the car to go around the track as fast as possible then I am sure it could do it. But it couldn't react to anything, other drivers, changing conditions, would all require extra programming.
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Exactly.

Programming in all of the variables plus the constants and letting the computer plot the fastest way to get around I think theoretically it has to be possible for the computer to be faster.

But driving is all about reacting to those variables changing at any second and throwing in the unknown elements of other cars etc. which I think would throw the balance some what.
 
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