A self-driving car programmed by talented students steered an Oxford Brookes Racing team to a second placed finish at the annual Formula Student UK competition at Silverstone race track.

Students in the Oxford Brookes Racing Autonomous (OBRA) team achieved their highest ever finish in the driverless car class of the competition, Formula Student UK: Artificial Intelligence.

OBRA, set up in 2019, finished top of the ‘Acceleration’, and second in the ‘Track Drive’ categories, which assessed how well their car could drive and perform. They then won first prize again in the ‘Business Plan’ and ‘Overall Static Events’ static event categories, which made them overall statics winner. Combined, this meant that the team finished as overall runners-up, just missing out to Edinburgh University. 

There are three separate classes of entry as part of the overall Formula Student UK competition. The first is the ‘Formula Student’ class, which is for teams entering self-built and designed cars with an engine of their choice—electric, petrol or hybrid.

Secondly, Formula Student-AI is the autonomous class where competing teams can either build and design their own AI car, or develop an autonomous driving system for cars provided by the competition. Finally, there is a Concept Class for teams to receive feedback on their own designs, ultimately with the aim of using the feedback to build their own cars. 

Mihir Gohad, Team Principal at OBRA, said: “Securing second place overall in the Formula Student UK AI competition is an extraordinary accomplishment. This would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of our team members, both current and former. I am equally indebted to our faculty mentors for their invaluable guidance and support, which has made a big difference to our results. I am excited to see the team continue to build upon this success and achieve even greater heights in the coming years.”

Faculty Adviser for OBRA, Dr Andrew Bradley, Head of Oxford Brookes’ Autonomous Driving and Intelligent Transport group. said: “I am immensely proud of the students. They have worked incredibly hard all year, and to see their efforts pay off makes all their late nights so much more worthwhile. There's a lot of cutting edge technology in the vehicle, meaning that the students are learning skills that set them up to be the Autonomous Vehicle engineers, software developers and business people of tomorrow.”

Oxford Brookes’ Electric Formula Student team, OBR EV, competed in the ‘Formula Student’ class. The team finished sixth in their overall table, but were the best UK electric team and maintained their record as the most successful ever UK team in the competition with eight outright wins in previous years. 

Formula Student UK took place from 17 to 21 July at Silverstone, the home of the British Grand Prix. 

Gordana Collier, Head of the School of Engineering at Oxford Brookes University, and the Principal Academic Adviser for OBR, said: “Despite the EV team not achieving their ambition to win at Silverstone this year, I am very proud and impressed with their performance: the car they designed and built was the most advanced car on trackWe have a very young team this year, largely made up of first year students and their learning has put us in an excellent position for next year’s competition. More immediately, we have already seen a record number of industrial placements due to this experience and are watching our graduates winning their dream jobs in the motorsport industry this summer. 

“We look forward to our next competition, Formula Student Czech Republic, which takes place from 5 to 10 August.”

Photos:
1. OBR Autonomous’ car in action during the winning run in the ‘Acceleration’ category. Image credited to Formula Student. 
2. OBR EV team on the track at Silverstone. Image credited to Formula Student.