Tata Elxsi is testing prototypes of autonomous cars that could soon head for road trials provided necessary regulatory approvals are in place.

While Tesla, Google, Volvo, Uber and most major automotive companies have made rapid strides in terms of autonomous cars, Tata Elxsi, the Bengaluru-based technology company focussing on automotive electronics and software, has laced together various technologies on its platform built on artificial intelligence towards developing the autonomous car.

It has licensed its advanced autonomous technology platform Autonomai to one of the world’s top five automotive OEMs for driverless car research and development.

Autonomai platform

The Autonomai platform has been developed as a modular solution that can help quickly build, test and deploy autonomous vehicles.

Thangarajan M, Senior Vice-President, Next Generation Business, Tata Elxsi, told BusinessLine , “We are working on two prototypes of autonomous cars. One is fairly high-end artificial intelligence packed with radar, 3-D Lidar and simulation facilities. The second one is pretty low-end sedan without much electronics where a number of elements have been loaded.”

While one of them is being tested on the company campus, another is on test on a playground taken on lease.

Already there are cars capable of autonomous drive capability, but the regulatory environment is not in place to use them. There is also no standardisation. It will take about 4-5 years for this to become mainstream, he explained. According to him, “Artificial intelligence-based systems will become integral part of cars covering speech recognition, driver monitoring and sensor-based engine control units. While autonomous cars may still take more time to get on to roads, various elements that go into such cars will be all-pervasive.”

What started with pedestrian alerts and collision alerts has evolved into intelligence built into the systems.

Over the next five years, human-machine interface covering speech recognition, gesture, handwriting, eye tracking and driver monitoring, virtual assistance and natural language interfaces would make a collective impact.

“We have worked with major automotive OEMs to analyse the impact of vehicle operation and vehicle data has been co-related with driver. The work includes night vision systems, lane depart feature, signboard recognition, pedestrian detection systems, park assistance systems, driver drowsiness system and blind spot warning systems,” he said.

“I believe it won't be long before a car becomes a living room on the go,” he said.

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