Paralyzed Racer Set to Tackle Long Beach in Modified Car

Verizon IndyCar Series Team owner Sam Schmidt, paralyzed in 2000, will reprise his triumphant circuit of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway last May with an attempt to drive the Long Beach Grand Prix road course on Sunday.

The kicker—Schmidt, who has no movement in his arms and legs, will be driving a modified vehicle called a Semi-Autonomous Motorcar (SAM) that's controlled by his head movements and breath.

The former IndyCar driver was the first person with quadriplegia to complete a circuit at Indianapolis last year and looks to repeat the feat at Long Beach this weekend. His modified 2014 C7 Corvette Stingray operated by Schmidt Peterson Motor Sports was developed as part of the Arrow SAM Project, in partnership with Arrow Electronics, Freescale Semiconductor, and Ball Aerospace & Technologies.

In January 2000, Schmidt severely injured his spinal cord in a crash during a practice lap at the Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Fla. He was told by doctors that he'd never drive again, but a few years ago, the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports founder teamed up with Arrow engineers to build a car that would allow him to sit behind the wheel of a powerful vehicle once again.

And the car Schmidt and his partners built is no lightweight. Schmidt hit 107 miles per hour while driving Indy last year in a semi-autonomous vehicle outfitted with cutting-edge Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) technologies supplied by Freescale and integrated by teams from Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, Arrow, Ball, Falci Adaptive Motorsports, and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The vehicle features separate steering, acceleration, and braking controls integrated into "a seamless system," according to the Arrow SAM Project. The development of SAM has gone through a couple of phases, according to the team that built it.

"How do you modify a car so someone unable to move from his shoulders down can safely drive it? SAM engineers launched the project with a question—what if you turned the driver's head into a joystick?" the SAM team explained.

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The first version of the car focused on steering, tracking the driver's head movements with sensors and infrared cameras, which were later upgraded by Freescale to better cope with poor lighting conditions outside the car and steering into tight turns. The next iteration added a mouth device which the driver can use for acceleration and braking.

Taking all that sensor data generated by the driver, processing it in real-time, and directing the car to drive smoothly and safely has been a major challenge, according to the SAM team. But now they've managed to get Schmidt back in his favorite seat in the house at some of the most iconic racetracks in the United States.