India’s first driver-less car test run conducted in IIT-Hyderabad
Sangareddy: In a historical moment in operating driverless vehicles, the Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad (IIT-H) tested the autonomous (driverless) electric vehicle on its campus on Monday. union Minister of State for Department of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Dr Jitendra Singh, Medak MP Kotha Prabhakar Reddy and others travelled in the vehicle during a test run.
With an objective to provide last-minute transporation from Metro Station and other mass transportation systems, the researchers at IIT-H Campus have also developed a driverless bicycle.
Whenever one books the bicycle on the mobile application, it reaches the passenger on its own tracking the GPS location. The researchers also organised a test run for the bicycle on the test bed on Monday.
Project Director of Technology Innovation Hub for Autonomous Navigation (TiHAN) Prof Rajyalakshmi has said that they achieved significant progress in developing autonomous vehicles. Further elaborating on their work, Prof Rajyalakshmi said that they were working on both terrestrial and aerial autonomous vehicles. While they were working to operate the driverless terrestrial vehicles on the campus for transporting the students from one end to another from August onwards, she said that they were planning to operate the aerial vehicles for delivering heavy payload goods initially. However, the TiHAN Director said that the testing of the aerial passenger vehicles was not too far away.
Impressed by the research work on autonomous vehicles at IIT-H Campus, union Minister Jitendra Singh has said the union government will extend all support to such innovators. He further said that the union government is resolved to make India a front runner in futuristic technologies.
Secretary to Department of Science and Technology Dr Srivari Chandrashekhar, Chairman Board of Directors IIT-H BVR Mohan Reddy, Director of IIT-H Prof BS Murty, Dean Research and Development Prof Kiran Kuchi and others were present.
