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Amazon today launched a self-propelled robot car, which allows people to practice their skills in developing reinforcement learning. The Amazon Web Services DeepRacer, as the small robot car was christened, can also participate in races.

The AWS DeepRacer is known as an interesting and fun way to start reinforcement learning. This is an advanced machine learning technique that uses a different approach to training models. Machines can learn complex behaviour without the need for labelled training data.

Machine learning

Developers can train and tweak machine learning models in an online simulator. They then have the DeepRacer as a test platform for the training. AWS showed the cars during the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.

The vehicle uses an Intel Atom processor, a four-megapixel 1080p resolution camera, Wi-Fi, multiple USB inputs and up to two hours of battery life. The Atom processor also runs the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Robot Operating System and the Intel OpenVino computer vision toolkit.

DeepRacer Cloud

AWS DeepRacer includes a fully configured cloud environment that you can use to train your reinforcement learning models, Amazon Chief Evangelist Jeff Barr explains in a blog post. It takes advantage of the new Reinforcement Learning feature in Amazon SageMaker and also includes a 3D simulation environment powered by AWS RoboMaker.

Developers can train their autonomous model themselves in a series of virtual racetracks. The developer can then perform a virtual evaluation and, if desired, download the information to the AWS DeepRacer car. The performance can then be tested in the real world.

Racing race

The great thing about this release is that Amazon also founded the AWS DeepRacer League. This is a competition in which vehicle owners can have their DeepRacer cars compete against each other in physical racetracks at AWS events worldwide. The winners may then participate in the AWS DeepRacer 2019 Championship Cup at re:Invent 2019 next year.

The AWS DeepRacer is now in pre-order for $249, delivery will take place on March 6, 2019.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.