The Indy Autonomous Challenge Powered by Cisco Returns to the Texas Motor Speedway

After a record-setting competition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in October 2021, the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC), a race with full-scale autonomous race cars, today announced they will be returning to the Texas Motor Speedway. On Friday, November 11, 2022 “The Indy Autonomous Challenge Powered by Cisco” will take place at 3545 Lone Star Cir, Fort Worth, TX 76177.

Cisco Systems, Inc. (Cisco), the multinational technology conglomerate and presenting sponsor will enable critical in-vehicle and car-to-trackside connectivity with Dallara AV-21 racecars.  The racecars will use ultra-low latency wireless technology for the head-to-head autonomous racecar competition where nine IAC teams will seek to compete. Collaborating with partners like Cisco, the IAC is working to increase safety and performance in not only motorsports, but across all modes of commercial transportation.

Teams competing at the “Indy Autonomous Challenge Powered by Cisco” at Texas Motor Speedway will be operating Dallara AV-21 autonomous racecars equipped with a boosted engine package, capable of delivering 30% more horsepower than the last time they raced to push high-speed multi-agent racing to its limits.

With its upgraded engine package, an IAC racecar programmed by team PoliMOVE from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the University of Alabama (USA) set a new land speed world record of 192.2 MPH at the historic Kennedy Space Center in April prompting the adoption of refreshed technology on all IAC racecars moving forward.

Cisco powers the in-vehicle networking and connectivity to and from the vehicles for race safety, telemetry data offload, and GPS timing alignment. The connectivity infrastructure includes Cisco Ultra-Reliable Wireless Backhaul for highly reliable mobile connectivity and Cisco Catalyst Industrial Ethernet switches to connect in-vehicle sensors and on-board compute. The same Cisco technologies powering the IAC are used to connect and secure critical systems and improve operations across industries like manufacturing/industrial automation, roadways, and ports.

On September 28, 2022, teams arrived at Texas Motor Speedway for an initial week of practice and will then return for practice October 24 through race day on November 11 where the competition will be live broadcast via Twitch in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

About Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC):

The Indy Autonomous Challenge organizes racing competitions among university affiliated teams from around the world to program fully autonomous racecars and compete in a series of history-making events at iconic tracks. Based in Indiana, the IAC is working to establish a hub for performance automation in the state and is harnessing the power of innovative competitions to attract the best and the brightest minds from around the globe to further the state-of-the-art technology in safety and performance of automated vehicles. The IAC started as a $1 million prize competition with 41 university teams signing up to compete more than two years ago, representing top engineering and technology programs from 14 U.S. states and 11 countries.

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Source: IAC