University of Hawaii

ADLINK Technology Powers
the University of Hawaii
Autonomous Racing Team

Introduction

Challenges

SolutionsInsights

Introduction

For the ﬁrst time ever, autonomous
race cars will push the limits of speed,
traction and autonomy around thefamous Indianapolis Motor Speedway,home of the Indianapolis 500. The raceis scheduled for October 2021, withuniversity teams from around theworld jockeying for the opportunity to
be selected to compete in thisinaugural autonomous race event.

The University of Hawaii AI Racing Tech (UH ART) Team is
one of the teams working to compete in the 2021 Indy
Autonomous Challenge (IAC). The oﬃcial competition takes
place with full-size autonomous race cars at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway, on October 23, 2021.

Challenges

The UH ART Team initially developed an evKart design tocompete in the 2020 Purdue evGrandPrix University
Autonomous Karting – Masters Division. The evKart
autonomous vehicle is an electric go-kart platform withspeciﬁcations borrowed from the evGrandPrix human-driven
competition vehicle. The UH ART Team successfully qualiﬁed
for the 2020 evGrandPrix competition, only to have the event
cancelled due to Covid-19 precautions. The team plans tocompete in the 2021 evGrandPrix, autonomous race with theirrace vehicle in April 2021. This event is one of the steppingstones to success in the INDY Autonomous Challenge(IAC).

The goal of the IAC competition is to cross the ﬁnish line in 25 minutes orless (i.e., averaging ≥ 120 MPH) in a head-to-head, 20-lap (~50 mile) race ofdriverless Dallara Indy Lights vehicles around the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway oval. The race track is unmodiﬁed for the IAC vehicles, and theteams are challenged to design racing algorithms and use sensor packages
that can successfully navigate on any race track.

Solutions

Adopting ADLINK and Intel’s
technologies to speed time
The team started development with the Nvidia Jetson device for onboard
vision processing and controlling the vehicle. The team installed an ADLINKROScube, which incorporates a powerful Intel CPU as well as dedicated MXM
slot for GPUs, in the fall and is now building their design around the ADLINKarchitecture.
autonomous driving architecture
Wireless

Perception

long range radars

Drive-by-wirewide angle radars

Localization

Antenna 1
LiDARcameras

SwitchAntenna 2

Computer

GPS with IMU

The evKart autonomous kart uses vision cameras,
GPS and inertial measuring units (IMUs) as thebasic sensor stack. All of the computing power,
processing, navigation and localization is done
onboard the vehicle.

Insights

The UH ART Team has been working towards this competition since spring of 2020 and the team wasformed by students who participated in the UH-Maui Autonomous Vehicle Technology class that year.
ADLINK is one of the sponsors for the 2021 Indy Autonomous Challenge and the UH ART Team,
providing the compute platform for individual team research vehicles as well as the actual competition
race platform for the IAC race cars.
The Indy Autonomous Challenge is hosting the inaugural autonomous vehicle competition in October
2021. If successful, this will become an annual event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The IAC’s goal
is to become the premier autonomous electric vehicle competition and its success follows on the heelsof previous events such as the Purdue evGrandPrix and the DARPA Grand Challenge. The IAC race willﬁeld the fastest autonomous race car platform on undoubtedly the most famous race track in America.

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