Amrita student team “Na-Sarathy” from the Humanitarian Technology (HuT) Labs, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri campus, qualified for round two of the Indy Autonomous Challenge to compete in the world’s first $1.5 million autonomous racecar competition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In the first round, the team presented a white paper.

Amrita is one of only two universities which qualified for this racecar competition from India and five from Asia.

The “Na-Sarathy” team registered successfully to compete in the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC), organized by Energy Systems Network (ESN) and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS). In total, 37 universities worldwide that excel in AI software and autonomous vehicle engineering have formed 31 teams to officially enter this first-of-its-kind challenge.

The team comprised of students from B. Tech. Electronics and Communication Engineering:

• The Semester 8 students consisted of Nikhil Chowdary, Jahnavi Yannam, Raviteja Geesala, Rohith Raj R. V., Manaswini Motheram, Akhil Masetti, Akhil Tammana and Ravi Kiran Pasumarthi;
• The Semester 6 consisted of Santosh Tantravani, Hemanth Tammana, Nagasai Thokala, Sreevatsava Reddy Musani, Rahul Puram, Naveen Samudrala, Hemanth Nidamanuru, Lokesh Gadde and Rohit Inti;
• The Semester 4 consisted of Avinash Hegde Kota, Vijaya Krishna Tejaswi P., Vineeth Prithvi Darla, Chaitanya N., Anirudh Dasari, Sriram Chowdary and Muneesh Puligundla.

The team is led by Dr. Rajesh Kannan Megalingam who heads the HuTs Lab and is an Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri.

The Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) is a $1.5 million prize competition among universities to program autonomous-modified Dallara IL-15 racecars and compete in the world’s first head-to-head race at speeds of up to 200 mph around the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway on October 23, 2021.

The event is a five-round competition among universities to create software that enables self-driving Indy Lights race cars to compete in a head-to-head race on the IMS track. In addition to the $1 million top prize, the second-place finisher will receive $250,000 and the third-place car will get $50,000. The event is conducted by IMS and Energy Systems Network, with help from race car manufacturer Dallara Automobili and the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research. The primary goal of the event is to advance technology that can speed the commercialization of fully autonomous vehicles and deployments of advanced driver-assistance systems.

In the second round, teams must demonstrate vehicular automation by sharing a short video of an existing vehicle or by participating in Purdue University’s self-driving go-kart competition at IMS. The third round will consist of a simulated race featuring $150,000 in prize money. The fourth round enables teams to test their actual vehicles at IMS in advance of the head-to-head race around the oval, which will award $1 million, $250,000, and $50,000 to the first, second, and third finishers, respectively.