Rise to the Indy Autonomous Challenge
On October 23, 2021, a host of colleges and universities will unleash their specially equipped Dallara AV-21 racecars onto the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway for $1.5 million prize money. But in this race, the cars must complete 20 laps (totaling roughly 50 miles) in 25 minutes or less, requiring an average speed of at least 120 miles per hour, and without a driver. This is the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC), the world’s first head-to-head, high speed autonomous land race aiming to help spur the evolution of autonomous vehicle (AV) development.
As the official edge computing sponsor of the IAC, ADLINK will supply every qualifying race team with an AVA-3501 series rugged computing platform for in-vehicle computing. This compact workstation faces a range of challenges unlike any traditional embedded deployment. To cope with the massive data load of high-speed, autonomous driving, the AVA-3501 must employ artificial intelligence (AI), working through gigabytes of image analysis in real time. There are no extra milliseconds to communicate with a pit crew, much less the cloud. This AI work must be done in-car, at the network edge, and showcases just one example of why today’s edge AI market is growing at over 20% annually. The IAC is, in some ways, a test of whether edge AI, and specifically ADLINK’s AVA-3501, is ready for this level of next-generation performance. The stakes are massive and the road ahead uncertain, but the AVA-3501 can help even these most daring AVs cross the finish line.