BrainChip Named Official Technology Sponsor for Raytheon’s “Operation Touchdown” Autonomous Vehicle Competition
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Sponsorship provides university teams with low-power AKD1000 neuromorphic AI hardware to solve complex collaborative UAV/UGV challenges
LAGUNA HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
BrainChip Holdings Ltd. (ASX: BRN, OTCQX: BRCHF, ADR: BCHPY), the world’s first commercial producer of ultra-low-power, fully digital, event-based neuromorphic AI, today announced its role as the official Technology Sponsor for the 2025-2026 Raytheon Autonomous Vehicle Competition (AVC).
The Raytheon AVC, themed “Operation Touchdown,” challenges undergraduate engineering teams from across four United States-based regions—South, Puerto Rico, West Coast, and East Coast—to design and integrate a collaborative system of systems involving at least one Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and one Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV). Teams must demonstrate fully autonomous navigation, target identification, and collaborative behaviors, including the signature challenge of autonomously landing a UAV on a moving UGV.
As the competition's core technology provider, BrainChip is requiring participating teams to integrate its advanced neuromorphic semiconductor technology into their systems. Teams will have exclusive access to the Akida™ AKD1000, a low-power Edge AI acceleration processor built on the Akida 1.0 neural network inference processor.
“Supporting STEM education and fostering innovation is at the core of BrainChip’s mission,” said Sean Hehir, CEO of BrainChip. “This competition represents the future of autonomous systems—where power-constrained devices must make intelligent decisions in real-time. We are proud to see our Akida technology driving the cognitive capabilities of the UAVs and UGVs in this year’s challenge.”
To ensure student success, BrainChip is providing the AKD1000 hardware at cost, delivering neuromorphic boards to each university competition team. Furthermore, BrainChip is committing up to 40 hours of virtual engineering support per competition, along with recorded webinars and integration guides, to assist teams in mastering on-chip learning and real-time adaptation to field conditions.
“The Raytheon Autonomous Vehicle Competition is designed to push the boundaries of what university students can achieve in autonomous systems,” said Jesse Lee, Raytheon Autonomous Vehicle Competition Lead. “By incorporating BrainChip’s neuromorphic processors, we are equipping the next generation of engineers with the cutting-edge AI capabilities required to solve real-world defense and disaster response challenges.”
The contest’s United States-based locations and dates:
South: The University of Texas at Arlington, Texas, April 16-17
East: George Mason University, Washington, D.C., April 22-24
West: Santa Barbara City College, California, June 5-6
Puerto Rico: TBD
About BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN, OTCQX: BRCHF, ADR: BCHPY):
BrainChip is the worldwide leader in Edge AI on-chip processing and learning. The company’s first-to-market, fully digital, event-based AI processor, Akida™, uses neuromorphic principles to mimic the human brain, analyzing only essential sensor inputs with unmatched efficiency and energy economy. Explore more at www.brainchip.com.
About Raytheon:
Raytheon, an RTX business, is a leading provider of defense solutions to help the U.S. government, our allies, and partners defend their national sovereignty. For more than 100 years, Raytheon has developed new technologies in integrated air and missile defense, advanced sensors, and autonomous systems.
