The EcoCAR Mobility Challenge would not be possible without all of the support from our competition sponsors. Sponsors provide different hardware, software, services and training to EcoCAR teams. Intel is one of the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturers and is also fostering the research of next generation autonomous vehicles by being a leadership-level sponsor for the EcoCAR Mobility Challenge.
Intel’s support has been essential to the University of Washington’s Connected & Automated Vehicles (CAV) swimlane. They provided our team with the AloT Tank-970-Q170 Series, which acts as our primary computing system. The team uses the Tank for sensor fusion and tracking computation. This means we are able to knit together the data from multiple sensors, then use this information to implement autonomous features, such as adaptive cruise control (ACC). Intel also provided us with a Mobileye camera that the team uses as a primary vision system for features such as lane-centering and ACC. Shown below is the range in which the Mobileye camera allows the vehicle to see.
In addition to donating hardware, Intel also provides all teams with tremendous amounts of training and technical backing. At the Year 2 Fall Workshop in September 2019, Intel helped teams set up their Tanks and to ensure that everything was functioning smoothly. If teams ever need technical help outside of workshops, there are always Intel representatives that we can contact to ask questions.
Our CAV lead, Brandon Ray, stated that “the support we receive from Intel helps the CAV team examine real-world data on powerful computing platforms in an undergraduate environment where it would be otherwise difficult to acquire such experience.”
The experience our team gains from working with such companies is priceless. Thus, our team is extremely grateful to get the opportunity to work with Intel and thankful for their ongoing support.