Andalucia Racing TEAM, ARUS, presents the first autonomous vehicle designed and built entirely in Andalusia

The presentation took place at the PCT Cartuja in the context of the eCitySevilla project

The Automobile Team of the University of Seville, Andalucía Racing TEAM ARUS, has held, at the Cartuja Center CITE located in the Cartuja Scientific and Technological Park, the presentation of its new car, the ART-24D, with which it will compete in the best Formula Student circuits, 2024. 

ARUS, made up of more than 100 students from different degrees and master's degrees from the US, will unveil today, before an audience of more than 400 attendees, this new model, which represents a great technological milestone in our environment, being the first completely autonomous vehicle designed and built entirely in Andalusia. 

The event will be attended by Miguel Ángel Castro Arroyo, Rector of the University of Seville; José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, Minister of University, Research and Innovation of the Junta de Andalucía; Álvaro Pimentel Siles, Third Deputy Mayor of the Seville City Council and Delegate of the Cartuja Area; Andrés Sáez Pérez, Director of the Higher Technical School of Engineering of the University of Seville; Luis Pérez Díaz, General Director of the PCT Cartuja; and Pedro García Macías, Team Manager of Andalucía Racing TEAM, ARUS.

The new ART-24D single-seater has the uniqueness of being, on the one hand, an electric vehicle, which will allow the team to compete in this category within the Formula Student, and for the first time, an autonomous vehicle, which will allow them to compete against other international teams that present prototypes of this same category. 

This will be the first Andalusian autonomous car to compete in any of the categories, and as a novelty, it will not work by radio control, but through code sensing, algorithms that make the car capable of interpreting the circuit itself. 

This new Formula Student car model has been developed with the collaboration of the eCitySevilla project, an initiative of the Government of Andalusia, Seville City Council, Endesa and PCT Cartuja, to which the ARUS Team belongs along with a hundred entities, between companies, institutions, universities and research centers. eCitySevilla's challenge is to advance in twenty-five years the energy and climate objectives established for 2050 by the European Union, which is why it is promoting sustainable mobility on the basis that the mobility of the future will be electric, connected and shared.

In parallel, during the development of the ART-24D prototype, the team has been advancing in the development of the car that they will present for the 2025 season, which will be the vehicle with the greatest technological advances in the history of ARUS, including a 4 transmission system. Wheel Drive (a motor integrated into each wheel), a carbon fiber monocoque chassis and topologically optimized designs in additive manufacturing among many other advances. 

Participating in the presentation to the media were Carmen Gallardo Cruz, Vice-Rector of Students at the University of Seville; José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, Minister of University, Research and Innovation of the Junta de Andalucía; Andrés Sáez Pérez, Director of the Higher Technical School of Engineering of the University of Seville; Rafael Sánchez Durán, Director of Endesa for Andalusia, Extremadura, Ceuta and Melilla and representative of the eCitySevilla Project; and Pedro García Macías, Team Manager of Andalucía Racing TEAM ARUS.  

Carmen Gallardo Cruz, Vice-Rector of the University of Seville, highlighted that “the support of the University of Seville to ARUS is above the results, which although they are important for the team, for us what counts is what they grow as professionals. and as people in the years that they are part of this project. We have the obligation to train people, and this team is one of the greatest exponents of our work." He also stressed that "it is notable that the members of the team are around 23 years old, although they develop technology at the level of the best R&D&I teams.” “It is exciting to accompany them, as the Rector and some of the Vice-Rectors do, to the competitions because that is where you can live and enjoy the full potential of the team.”

For his part, the Minister of University, Research and Innovation, José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, has pointed out that ARUS “is an example of the capabilities of our students, who form a multidisciplinary team capable of facing the challenge of competing on a scale with the rest of the universities in the world.” Likewise, he highlighted that it represents “a new milestone” in the twelve years of life of the team, which “due to its ambition, its knowledge and its innovative vocation, it has gone from a combustion car to an autonomous vehicle designed to compete through algorithms.” of artificial intelligence.”

Likewise, he stressed that this team “is a luxury ambassador” for the Ecity project, in which the Junta de Andalucía, the PCT Cartuja, the Seville City Council and other entities such as Endesa “are allies to transform the Isla de la Cartuja in an open, digital, decarbonized and self-sufficient ecosystem.” 

Furthermore, he highlighted that the students who make up the ARUS have managed to apply artificial intelligence to the piloting of this car and, in this regard, he recalled that the new catalog of degrees from Andalusian universities includes, as in the case of the at the University of Seville, degrees in the field of artificial intelligence.

Likewise, the Director of the Higher Technical School of Engineering of the University of Seville, Andrés Sáez Pérez, recalled that “although this project emerged from the ETSi in 2012, over the years the team has added students to its ranks. from other centers that contribute their knowledge and experiences in other areas. They are therefore a multidisciplinary group that has managed to place themselves at the top of Formula Student.”  

Pedro García Macías, Team Manager of ARUS, has shown his satisfaction with the work carried out this year by the team, which has been able to design and create a “single-seater with driverless technology with which we hope to take to the University of Seville, to the city of Seville and Andalusia, to the top of the competition.” He has also thanked the team, sponsors and institutions for their demonstrated support and involvement, without which, this project would not be possible.  

For the director of Endesa in Andalusia, Extremadura, Ceuta and Melilla, Rafael Sánchez, “it is a pride to be able to accompany the Arus team in the presentation of the first prototype of an autonomous electric vehicle built in Andalusia by students from the University of Seville and to do so under the umbrella of the eCitySevilla project. At Endesa we have been supporting the Arus Rancing Team since 2018, when we learned of its potential and all the young talent that drove it, thus responding to our commitment to Andalusian engineering and the promotion of sustainable mobility, a strategic pillar for the fight against climate change and achieving the energy transition”.

A team that reaps success

The Automobile Team of the University of Seville, which competes every year in the Formula Student, was created in 2012 at the Higher Technical School of Engineering of the University of Seville (ETSi), where they continue to have their headquarters, on the initiative of a group of engineering students, who saw the need to integrate into their association students from other degrees who could contribute their knowledge in other subjects outside the engineering sector. In this way, it grew and became what it is today, a team that designs, manufactures and seeks financing to create a competition vehicle each season, and in different categories – combustion, electric and this season autonomous.  

Last season, they abandoned the combustion car and, currently, they have focused entirely on an electric and autonomous vehicle that will take them to compete in the main European Formula Student events, whose regulations also require them to introduce each new year in the chassis. 

With this new prototype, in manual and autonomous electric version, ARUS aims to surpass the successes of past editions – the ARUS Andalucía Racing Team electric vehicle managed to position itself in first place among the rest of the Spanish teams – debuting for the first time, in the Formula Student with this new autonomous vehicle. 

During the month of January, the exams took place to determine the circuits in which they will compete next August. Around 700 teams from all over the world showed up. The teams that obtained the best results were able to choose which events they would attend, always choosing those of the highest level. This was the case of the US Automobile Team.

This year ARUS will visit Formula Student Spain, at the Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya, Formula Student Germany, the most prestigious competition of all with an incredible second  position in the entrance exams, at Hockenheimring and Formula Student Alpe Adria at the Bugatti-Rimac test circuit, Croatia.