Piloted driving at Audi is approaching production readiness at race pace. On one of the world’s most challenging race tracks, the Sonoma Raceway in California, the latest generation of the Audi RS 7 piloted driving concept has surpassed previous top performances once again. Audi will be offering piloted driving for the first time in the upcoming generation of the A8.

“In Sonoma, we took the Audi RS 7 piloted driving concept to its physical limits lap after lap, and it handled the task with uniform precision,” says Thomas Müller, who is responsible for the development of brake, steering and driver assistance systems at Audi. “The car turned in lap times that were better than those of sports car drivers.” The RS 7 took just 2:01.01 minutes to complete the 4,050-metre (2.5 mile) circuit.

For some time now, the carmaker has been testing piloted driving under increasingly challenging conditions. In October 2014, an RS 7 nicknamed ‘Bobby’ already completed a driverless lap on the Hockenheimring at speeds up to 240kph. The new generation of the car is named ‘Robby’, has a power output of 412 kW (560 hp) and is around 400kg (881.8 lb) lighter than its predecessor. Whether braking, steering or accelerating, the piloted car controls all driving functions fully autonomously and with maximum precision.

Audi is also testing piloted driving in the challenging situation of real road traffic.
At the start of 2015, ‘Jack’ – an Audi A7 piloted driving concept with many near-production solutions – drove on public highways from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Shortly thereafter, this car also drove autonomously on German autobahns at speeds up to 130kph. At CES Asia in May 2015, journalists also had an opportunity to experience piloted driving – in the traffic of megacity Shanghai.

The development work, which includes driving on a very wide array of testing grounds, is yielding valuable knowledge for series-production systems – from the sensor technology and data processing to vehicle control and stabilization.

Audi says the technologies for piloted driving stand for safety, time savings, efficiency and convenience. The systems can make a valuable contribution to safety, especially when the driver is overwhelmed or underwhelmed by driving tasks. In addition, it gives drivers greater freedom for organising their time in the car. When used to temporarily assume driving tasks, the predictive technology makes driving more efficient, reduces stress and enhances comfort.

Piloted driving will make its production debut in the next generation of the luxury-class A8 sedan. The systems can assume control of the car during parking or in stop-and-go traffic on freeways at speeds up to 60kph.