Two international races for NTU in 2024

Image: The NTU student team at Silverstone with the NVF-1.

NTU is revving up for two international motor racing events taking place within months of each other in 2024.

On April 27, an autonomous race taking place at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit will feature a Formula Three car running on artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms programmed by NTU.

Led by Associate Professor Lyu Chen from NTU’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, a team of PhD students and research fellows has been writing and refining the algorithms which allow the race car to take calculated risks like a human driver. The team has partnered Autocraft, an AI subsidiary of Kintsugi, a technology group in the United Arab Emirates, and is working around the clock to get the AI-driven car ready.

The NTU team is no stranger to autonomous driving competitions. In the last three years, it has won several awards at the Waymo Open Dataset Challenges, hosted by technology company Alphabet’s Waymo. These include being the sole winner in the Interaction Prediction category in 2021 and placing second in the Motion Prediction category in the same year.

From July 17 to 21, another NTU team is fielding a student-built electric single-seat, open-wheel car to compete in the Formula Student race at the Silverstone circuit in Britain. This is the second time NTU is taking part in the event. In 2023, a group of 20 students from various faculties formed the first Singaporean team to compete in the event with the NVF-1. It secured an overall 41st position out of more than 80 teams from around the world. This time, the team has grown to 40 students, led by Mr Yash Chandra Shekar, 21, a fourth-year student from MAE. They are mentored by Emeritus Associate Professor Ng Heong Wah and Associate Professor Holden Li, both also from MAE.