Toyota Manages To Drift Driverless Supra On Racetrack

In recent years, autonomous driving has come leaps and bounds to a point where getting from point A to B is possible with little to no driver input, something that can get a bit boring on long journeys. Well then, how about an autonomous car that can do sideways action without your inputs? The Toyota Research Institute (TRI) has successfully done just that on a souped-up Supra!  

The experiment was conducted at Thunderhill Raceway in California, USA on the 3.21km ‘West’ track. The Supra had a ton of modifications onboard, including a computer-controlled steering, throttle, clutch, sequential transmission and individual wheel braking setup. The vehicle state information was sourced from a dual-antenna RTK-GNSS-aided INS system at a rate of 250Hz.

Toyota used technology called Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) which essentially is a control scheme that extends the vehicle’s operational domain beyond a traditional loop stability program to allow controllable drifts. The NMPC controller runs on an x86 computer. 

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Aside from modifications related to autonomous driving, the Supra’s suspension, engine, transmission, chassis and safety systems (roll cage, fire suppression) were tricked out to a similar setup as the race cars used in Formula Drift competitions. Of course, there was professional drift driver Ken Gushi sitting behind the wheel, and all he needed to do to activate autonomous mode was to use the ‘engage’ button on the centre console.

The entire purpose of this experiment was to test out how a car can autonomously detect obstacles and drift their way around them on a closed race track. It can also help maintain control on slippery surfaces such as wet or icy roads.

Sure, having autonomous drifting, let alone fully autonomous vehicles, is still a long way away, but a driverless drifting machine should help quash the myth that driverless journeys are boring. Don’t believe it? Here’s the Supra drifting its way around Thunderhill Raceway in the video below: