GR Supra As The TRI’s Test Subject, Toyota’s Autonomous Drifting Capabilities

Tested using the GR Supra, Toyota Research Institute (TRI), is avidly working to advance active safety through its autonomous drifting capabilities.

It takes place at Toyota’s advanced research institute in Silicon Valley, U.S., where the GR Supra calculatingly turns corners avoiding obstacles autonomously on a closed course.

Although a safety driver is on board to take care of any emergencies, all operations, including steering, throttle, brake, clutch and gear controls, are done automatically.

First and foremost, safety might not be the first thing that comes to mind when the term drifting is used, nonetheless, it is the main focus for TRI.

To elaborate, the driving conditions on a particular road can differ based on many factors, which calls for a certain type of driving manoeuvre to take hold. 

For example, even though everyone drives the same road every day, rain may change the friction of the road making it more slippery.

Better yet, heavy traffic may result in tighter gaps between road users, in turn requiring a more skilful vehicle control.

On top of that, some traffic accidents occur in environments that make it difficult for the average driver to maintain control.

Specifically, icy and sandy roads or situations that require an aggressive combination of steering, throttle and brake.

Thus, in such extreme situations, enhancing regular drivers with expert skills such as drift control can help them avoid accidents.

Significantly, the idea is not to use advanced technologies to replace humans but to augment and enhance them temporarily with the skills of a professional driver in case of an emergency.

However, drifting is only possible by balancing a variety of factors, such as counter steering and advanced load transfer, under extreme vehicle conditions.

As such, to realize this, TRI’s researchers have developed an original Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) architecture.

Claimed by Toyota, said system is able to balance the objectives of staying within the lane and avoiding obstacles, all while drifting. 

This approach encodes a deep understanding of vehicle dynamics and control, allowing for updates of the vehicle’s trajectory every twentieth of a second. 

By being able to do so, the high rate of control enables the vehicle to quickly adapt to changing situations on the road to ensure a collision-free trajectory.

Cumulatively, TRI continues to advance ‘human-centred’ safety technology for the next generation by integrating hardware and software technologies at a high level.

The focus is on four advanced research areas, ‘Human Centric AI’, which includes the Supra autonomous drifting, ‘Energy and Materials’, ‘Robotics’ and ‘Machine Learning’.

Currently, its mission has been gradually evolving as their advanced research on automated driving has transitioned to the development phase with a view to installing them in vehicles.

In short, the core of these research efforts is the ambition to unlock the true value of AI to further improve the humans’ abilities and enrich people’s lives.