IIT Kharagpur and the Technical University of Munich from Germany have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for setting up an Indo-German Collaborative Research Center on Intelligent Transportation Systems. The Center will be located at IIT Kharagpur with the possibility of a similar center being replicated in Germany in the future, reported ET Auto.
The goal of this Center will be to bring together Indian and German researchers, as well as industry partners from the two countries to work on various topics in the domain of transportation. These include next-generation cars where most of the innovation is in electronics and software, to environmentally friendly green transportation options and seamless connectivity between various modes of transportation.
Given the size and population of India, German automotive companies and suppliers see a huge potential in the Indian market. At the same time, the scale of things in India, and its unique characteristics offer several opportunities and challenges for German researchers working in the domain of transportation.
Solutions that have been developed to operate in German conditions and roads need to be appropriately customized for Indian scenarios, which involve several technological challenges that need a tight cooperation between Indian and German researchers.
The goal of this Center is also to combine German excellence in engineering with India’s prowess in software and systems engineering developing next generation green, electric, intelligent and autonomous vehicles.
IIT Kharagpur has already invested a significant fraction of its infrastructure grant towards setting up laboratories for advanced vehicle testing and calibration, battery pack manufacturing and testing, connected cars and cloud based diagnostic testbeds, and design and testing of electronic and software systems for vehicles and transportation systems.
At the same time, TU Munich is one of the world’s leading academic institutions in the area of automotive and transportation engineering and is well connected to the top German automotive companies like BMW, Audi and Daimler.
