Ferrari Merges Real-World And Virtual Racing So Drivers Can Race Their Friends At Home

Ferrari has filed a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a racing augmented reality method that allows drivers in the real world to compete with friends digitally. Discovered by CarBuzz, the idea blurs the lines between the physical and virtual worlds.

Whether the driver is in a real car or at home using a gaming console, both will be aware of their competitor's position. The driver will be able to see this via a special interface device, which seems simple enough considering how far augmented reality head-up displays have come, while the competitor at home will "see" the real driver on their usual screen or monitor. Ferrari's justification for the idea doesn't sound as far-fetched as some other patents we've discovered.

As Ferrari points out, the owner of a high-performance supercar like an 812 Competizione can't get close to exploiting the car's capabilities on normal roads. That's where track days come in. The issue with track days is that many owners of high-powered supercars are typically not pro drivers, so qualifying to partake in actual races is difficult or impossible.

Besides that, organizing an amateur race with friends comes with its own logistical challenges, including whether you even have a friend close by with a comparable car. Even if you do, there are risks associated with such a race for two or more amateur drivers.

It all means that solo track runs are the reality for the owners of these cars, but that means losing the thrill of competition. That's where Ferrari's racing method comes in. The apparatus inside the real Ferrari will have a communication system that links this car to the virtual one via the road car's CAN or Ethernet network.

Whether via a 3D model or render, the driver of the road car will be able to see a projection of the virtual car as if it were on the track alongside them. The design goes so far as to project the virtual vehicle in the road car's wing mirror if its position is behind the road car.

If contact occurs between the road car and the virtual car, the driver of the road car will sense this via haptic feedback in the seat or steering wheel. Depending on where the contact takes place, the driver of the real car will even feel a deflection in the vehicle's trajectory, as if actual physical contact between two cars has occurred.

The real-time data transfer will likely be one of the greatest challenges for this invention to work, with Ferrari mentioning 5G and even 6G connectivity and a latency of under 500 milliseconds.

The competing driver sitting in front of their gaming console will perceive the real car as a virtual competitor, even though it's a real car being driven in real time. Although it all sounds quite complex, the basic technologies are already in place to make such a racing method plausible, and other manufacturers have also dabbled in virtual reality high-performance driving.

Last year, BMW announced its ///M Mixed Reality project. Like Ferrari's idea, this also blends the physical and virtual worlds. Drivers behind the wheel of a real BMW M2 wore virtual reality goggles where they had to dodge digitally formed obstacles.

We look forward to seeing Ferrari's idea progress beyond the patent stage. As the automaker points out, performance cars alone need not benefit from the technology.