IIT-Delhi Working On Driverless E-rickshaw 

New Delhi: The Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) here is working on a driverless autonomous shuttle vehicle to provide last-mile connectivity to urban Indians.

The vehicle, an electric rickshaw, would run on predefined routes. It would first shuttle between points in the university campus and in the future, provide hassle-free connectivity to modes of public transport such as Metro services.

"It will do autonomous static obstacle avoidance, lane following, read basic traffic signals, follow speed limits, and navigate through a 3D map," Head of Infosys Centre for Artificial Intelligence at IIIT-Delhi, Mayank Vatsa, who is overseeing the project, said. The project began in April 2016 when the artificial intelligence research centre of the institute was founded.

"Our current choice of vehicle platform is an electric rickshaw, and currently, we are working on providing shuttle service within the IIIT-Delhi campus," Vatsa said. Others in the team include Dr Sanjit Kaul, Dr Saket Anand, Dr PB Sujit along with Ph.d students of the institution. To keep the cost per shuttle low, the team also plans to leverage state-of-the-art computational techniques that enables reducing the cost of sensing hardware needed for each of these vechiles.

"We are also hoping to replicate the above on Mahindra's electric car which we received from the company as part of the Mahindra Rise Driverless Car Challenge," he said.

PTI