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Driverless car breaks land speed world record at Kennedy Space Center

race-car.Image source, Indy Autonomous Challenge
Image caption,

Team PoliMOVE pose with their record-breaking car.

A robotic car has just broken the world land speed record!

The Dallara AV-21 race car was developed by a team called PoliMOVE, from the Politecnico di Milano - a university in Italy - and the University of Alabama from the US.

During a test drive at the Launch & Landing Facility at Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre the car clocked a whopping speed of 192.2mph (309.3kph).

This meant the team smashed the previous land speed record of 175.49mph (282.42kph), held by Roborace.

Image source, Indy Autonomous Challenge

The car is driverless, which means there is no one in the car controlling it, instead it is controlled by robotics and algorithms - programmes which tell the car what to do.

The Dallara AV-21 race car was taking part in the latest Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC), where teams from all over the world compete using the AV-21 model car, to see who can alter it to be faster.

To make sure the race was fair, each car had its average speed recorded over 0.6 miles (1km) during two attempts in opposite directions (to eliminate any effect that wind direction might have).

"We are thrilled with the world record, but we're also excited by the fact that this data will be made available to all, and the industry will benefit from our work and learnings." said Professor Sergio Savaresi, head of the Politecnico di Milano.

If you could break a world record what would it be? Let us know in the comments!