The Hindu Business Line : Smart cars now powered by Indian brains

R&D WORK HERE: Dr Thomas Webber (right), Global Head of Technology, DaimlerChrysler, and Prof Bharat Balasubramanium, Head of Passenger Vehicle Development, at a press conference in Bangalore on Wednesday. - G.R.N. Somashekar

Bangalore , Jan 3

The car of the future will owe its smartness to Indian engineers.

Indian engineers at DaimlerChrysler's research and development lab are working on "intelligent night view," a next-generation application that will let the driver catch up on his sleep while the car negotiates the night traffic.

This feature builds on `night view', where the car is fitted with infrared headlights, and an infrared camera feeds high resolution images to a TV screen fitted on the dashboard, so the driver can easily steer with his newfound `night vision'. When coupled with the ongoing work on contour mapping algorithms, which will let the car identify moving objects such as pedestrians and cyclists, this application will result in accurate and accident-free drive.

R&D centre

"We need high technology software systems. Skills here will help us fulfil requirements of future cars," said Mr Thomas Weber, Executive Vice President RD, Board of Management, DaimlerChrysler Group Research and Mercedes Car Group. The centre has contributed to road condition safety, accident-free driving (contour mapping of moving objects), IT for engineering and logistics (telematics applications), passive safety, virtual manufacturing processes (3D modelling of parts such as the Schiebemuffe) and fuel cell operation (simulation of system integration) and battery management for hybrid vehicles which is used to design processors.

Too early for Indian roads

However, it will be years before we get to drive a hybrid car by DaimlerChrysler here. India will not take to fuel cell and hybrid cars for 20-30 years, until it becomes an ecologically conscious society, said Mr Bharat Balasubramanian, Vice President, Group Research and Advanced Engineering, E/E, IT and Processes, DaimlerChrysler AG.

The carmaker also does not think the high tech applications such as night view and active safety suitable for Indian road conditions. So research on country-specific cars, what it calls `tropical packages' is being carried out. "We need more robust technology for India as we have non-mechanised traffic here. In three years, integration of various technologies such as camera and radar will take place. Only after that we can expect such smart cars to hit Indian roads," he said. The maker's Bluetec technology (for clean emission) for diesel vehicles will not be introduced in India till problems such as adulteration and diesel with high sulphur content are solved.

The carmaker is planning to build competency centres for passive safety, fluid dynamics and product design data management by 2012 at the Bangalore centre. This lab is the second largest for DaimlerChrysler outside Germany. The lab has obtained 4 patents in passive safety to date.

The company feels that India is a future market and has a huge growth potential. The two centres at Pune and Bangalore would prepare it for the growth, for, as it believes, `India is too large for small cars.'

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