What kind of sparks can be ignited when autonomous driving meets track racing?
Recently, the “Zenith 1” autonomous racing challenge took place at the Zhuzhou Racing Circuit. A track-level autonomous driving system known as “Sky Monkey” competed against two human drivers—WTCC world champion Rob Huff and the first certified female racing coach in China, Ma Jianxin.
Notably, this marks the first time in the world that a track-level autonomous vehicle has competed alongside real drivers.
In this 10-lap endurance race, “Sky Monkey” recorded a fastest lap of 2 minutes and 33 seconds. However, a mechanical failure on the 6th lap caused a race interruption, preventing any further improvement on that time. On the human side, Ma Jianxin finished with a lap time of 2 minutes and 16 seconds, securing victory in this “human vs. machine” showdown with a 17-second advantage.
After the race, Ma Jianxin remarked, “Sky Monkey achieved its current result in less than a month, while I took five to six years to reach such a level. Autonomous driving technology will undoubtedly create broader development opportunities for the racing industry and the automotive sector.”
As an autonomous racing vehicle, “Sky Monkey” integrates advanced technologies such as BeiDou positioning, artificial intelligence, machine vision, and automatic control, allowing it to test the feasibility and reliability of autonomous driving technologies under more extreme scenarios on the racetrack.
Unlike many dedicated autonomous driving vehicles designed for specific purposes, the intelligent driving system crafted by Hongjing Intelligent Driving for “Sky Monkey” does not utilize the original car’s wire control. Instead, it operates steering and braking through FOC motors, which allows for more human-like driving movements. This means that the execution mechanism can adapt to almost any vehicle type, free from limitations of a linear chassis.
Although “Sky Monkey” did not defeat the human driver this time, the fact that this race car improved its performance from 3 minutes and 14 seconds to 2 minutes and 33 seconds in just over twenty days since its first time on the track is a remarkable progress that makes the future of autonomous driving worth looking forward to.
