“Reinventing the wheel?” That’s Audi’s opening statement in its press release about the new technology the company is using. Of course, the German marque isn’t experimenting with new wheel shapes. The rims will retain their circular shape for the foreseeable future, but the way they are designed could be different – at least for Audi.
Audi has started using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to design new alloy wheels. But before you raise your eyebrows and scream that design is the most humane process of building cars, note that Audi hasn’t completely replaced their designers with computers.
Instead, using a self-developed technology called FelGANAudi designers took inspiration from AI’s wheel designs.
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FelGAN is a mash-up of the German word for “rim” (Felge) and “GAN”, which stands for Generative Adversarial Networks. A GAN is a special form of self-learning computer program that uses two algorithms to compete as opponents during a “training stage”. Both algorithms are designed to learn from their mistakes and continually improve.
By doing this, one of the algorithms would make creations “so lifelike, even the human eye cannot, or can only tell, them from the original photo”.
AI-designed rims will serve as inspiration for designers – a sort of spontaneous idea hub for the Audi rim design team. It also allows them to exchange new versions and variations. And ultimately, these tools allow designers to easily experiment with shapes, colors, surface structures and other parameters in real-time.
This new design process does not rely entirely on AI ideas. Audi designers can also feed the program with their own designs and photos, adding them to a virtual experimental surface.
The final step in the design process is turning the virtual design into something real by prototyping the wheel. It will be made of plastic or aluminum, made using high-tech milling machines.
