IIT Hyderabad partners with Mitsubishi Electric for joint research on autonomous navigation

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) - National Mission on interdisciplinary cyber‑physical systems (NMICPS) Technology Innovation Hub on Autonomous Navigation (TiHAN) – has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Advanced Technology R&D Centre (ATC) of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO). The partnership will lead to joint research and development on the “verticals of autonomous navigation”.

The two organisations plan to use each other’s “technical expertise” and infrastructure to conduct training and capacity-building programmes for IIT Hyderabad students in order to boost employability. The collaboration will incubate and support startups, and tackle real-world problems faced by the industry or the government.

“TiHAN Testbed is a state-of-the-art facility and the first of its kind in the nation for testing and validating different use cases of autonomous vehicles. Our association with MELCO will be a game-changer,” stated BS Murty, director of IIT Hyderabad.

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IITH-MELCO collaboration

According to Nobutoshi Todoroki, general manager of ATC, MELCO, this collaboration can make sure that the products developed are not only market-ready, but can also ensure international quality standards and decreased replication of work. He said that the future of the IITH-MELCO partnership can see increased research, project based problem statements support, industry support through certification courses, and employment.

“Autonomous vehicles are being talked about globally, and levels of autonomy are being implemented in Indian vehicles as well. MELCO is already in a plan developing an Incubation center where the space and services will be provided to establish an ecosystem of academia and industry startups,” he added.

P Rajalakshmi, project director of TiHAN, IIT, also remarked, “TiHAN, IITH is working towards the vision of being the destination of next-generation mobility solutions providing a collaborative research platform for industry, R&D labs and academia at both national and international levels.”