Tata Elxsi, the Tata Group’s design and technology services company, said one of the top five carmakers in the world has licensed its driverless car software for use as part of its research and development in this direction.
Further details of the deal were not disclosed.
“We are delighted with this latest win for AUTONOMAI by one of the world’s top 5 car OEMs”, said Nitin Pai, Senior Vice President Marketing for Tata Elxsi.
The company’s AutonomAI platform covers perception, guidance, navigation and control and drive-by-wire systems, to quickly build, test and deploy autonomous vehicles.
“This solution supports sensor fusion with a variety of sensors from cameras to Radar and Lidar, and leverages sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning based algorithms to deliver the complex use-case scenarios expected of driverless cars,” the company said.
The company’s self-driving car fitted with a 3D Lidar — providing a cross-sectional profile of observed objects — short range sensors and cameras is has been plying on the campus.
The self-driving car has been in testing on the company’s campus in Bangalore for several weeks, and could even go for testing on Bangalore’s public roads if permission is granted.
“Indian roads have unique challenges, with drivers often having to contend with cows, dogs and pedestrians. This is the biggest challenge for autonomous cars in India and no one really believes such a concept is possible in India,” the company said recently.
Tata Elxsi is one of the few Indian private companies that do original research in technology. Most Indian ‘technology companies’ essentially work like system integrators and resellers, basically packaging software and solutions brought out by Western companies.
However, Tata Elxsi conducts its own research into hi-tech areas such as chip design, device design and artificial intelligence.
In the automotive sphere, the company conducts research into infotainment, telematics, powertrain, and body electronics, along with technologies such as artificial intelligence, analytics, cloud and IoT.