Three IITs Working On Autonomous Cars For India — Will It Be Traffic Jam Proof?

Teams at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur, Bombay and Kharagpur are working on autonomous vehicle solutions or driverless solutions. The project has evoked interest from Indian automotive companies, though nothing has been confirmed.

As per ET, the IITs did not disclose the names of companies due to confidentiality agreements, although campus sources said all the leading auto companies were working with the three institutes.

IIT Kharagpur's Debashish Chakravarty, head of the autonomous ground vehicle (AGV) project, said, "We are developing technology for driverless cars keeping the Indian market in mind, in contrast to the global tech majors who are building and testing technologies in the Western market."

Worldwide, auto companies like Google, Uber and Tesla are testing out autonomous vehicles, though it is being tested in western countries and not in India.

While IIT Kharagpur students are currently testing autonomous vehicles built from scratch within their campus, IIT Kanpur has plans to build its autonomous vehicle, according to Gaurav Pandey who quit his job in the autonomous vehicle research group at the US-based Ford Motor Company to join IIT Kanpur as a staff in 2015.

"India is a complex market and creating solutions in the absence of adequate infrastructure and civic sense needed for driverless vehicles becomes even more challenging," said IIT Bombay's Ankit Sharma, who is leading a team of students on the driverless technology.

He further added, "If we can have a solution that can work in India, it will undoubtedly work anywhere in the world."

IITs are also individually designing a prototype vehicle using 3D laser sensor lidar to aid advanced road detection, which is critical to the autonomous vehicle. "This car is built from scratch at the institute with only sensors being outsourced. The algorithm or the brain of the car is being developed by us," said Sharma.

While we wait for self-driving cars to hit the Indian roads, here is an SUV which can very much tackle some of the rough roads in India. Tata Hexa is a crossover SUV with off terrain capabilities, below is an extensive photo gallery, click to view.