Nürburgring will automatically tackle crashes
With the help of AI from Fujitsu, the Nürburgring should become a lot less Green Hell and a little more fun toll road.
The Nürburgring is perhaps the best day out for the car enthusiast. It is a gigantic long circuit which is not really a circuit anymore. The Nordschleife is certainly still used for racing events, but during Touristenfahrten it is more or less a toll road.
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Unsafe
A very unsafe toll road. There are rules, such as speed limits, keeping your distance and overtaking is only allowed on the left, as if you were driving on a highway. Even then, the Nürburgring, nicknamed the Green Hell, remains a dangerous track. From the cunning Adenauer Forst to the risky Karussel corner, the chances of something going wrong somewhere on the 20.8km circuit are pretty high. Prevention is mainly in the hands of the drivers. Healing should be something easy thanks to AI from Fujitsu at the Nürburgring.
Aftermath
Currently, healing, for example after a crash, must mainly be done by hand. A handful of marshals monitor parts of the circuit. Fujitsu’s AI system for the Nürburgring should take on that role. Cameras are currently being installed to digitize the role of those marshals. Even then it is difficult: to get a clear picture of the entire circuit you are talking about more than 100 different cameras. The organization of the Nürburgring calls this monitoring a ‘superhuman task’ in a press release.
AI
That’s where Fujitsu’s AI comes into play for the Nürburgring. Artificial intelligence must be able to analyze the images for every camera that is installed. We see an example in the image above: the system recognizes cars and motorcycles. The system is self-learning and can then see exactly what is going well and – more importantly – what is not going well. The system will then sound the alarm and the necessary alarm procedures and the clean-up service can then turn out as quickly as possible.
Rollout
The image above is an example of the first camera installed at the Döttinger Hohe. This is Fujitsu’s first AI camera for the Nürburgring that is currently being tested. When it proves to work well, work will start on the rollout for the entire circuit. According to the organization, this should ensure a revolution in safety for the circuit.
