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In its audacious plan to create a fleet of 100 driverless cars in the next four years, Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover has tied up with Harvard University to seek technology assistance.
To take the initiative forward, Tata group has forged a tie up between Harvard University and group companies Tata Communications and Jaguar Land Rover to research on connected and driverless cars. Last month, JLR had announced that it will create a fleet of more than 100 research vehicles over the next four years to test autonomous and connected technology.
Tata group would provide grants of over $6 million to Harvard University to research in the areas of soft robotics, advanced materials, and sensor technologies that could help create the next generation cars for JLR.
“Because the eco-system which the car provides now is beyond locomotion, so, it is entire computing environment and the personal environment including entertainment but also in various other aspects. So, you can take your phone and it becomes your operating system or you could be driving or sitting in a Google autonomous vehicle and or sitting in a Tata Motors vehicle which has the human machine interface built by Tata Motors,” Gopichand Katragadda, Group Chief Technology Officer, Tata Sons, told BusinessLine .
Autonomous features Tata Sons is forging similar alliances with three other universities, including Yale, IIT Madras and Royal Society, UK, to keep abreast with changing market needs and upcoming technologies. The total grant for these six universities combined would be $25 million. Autonomous cars have already become a reality with Singapore launching its first driverless taxi service last week. According to Katragadda, JLR may still not be close enough to building a driverless car, but several autonomous features are already available in JLR cars, including adaptive cruise control, lane-departure detection.
Other features that mimic driverless behaviour include 'Park Assist', wherein the car parks itself into the nearest vacant parking spot or ‘Highway assist’, wherein your car automatically follows the movements of any car in front like a guided missile, including braking, turning and speeding. “We would like to be part of the technology trends in areas beyond what is typical for us,” Katragadda said, adding that autonomous features built in partnership with Harvard university and separately within JLR would be rolled out incrementally in the cars, instead of straight away coming up as a driverless car.
Since its acquisition of JLR in 2008, Tata Motors has transformed the luxury auto maker into one of the fastest growing luxury car brands. Some of the autonomous features that JLR currently offers also came in after Tata’s acquisition.
Tatas now wants to ensure that JLR remains ahead of the curve as luxury car makers, including Audi, BMW and Mercedes, have already showcased their driverless cars prototypes.
Tata Sons and Tata companies, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tata Chemicals, Tata Communications, Tata Steel, have entered into collaborations to fund research and development opportunities in partnership with the world’s leading academic institutions, including Yale University, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the Royal Society, UK.
The Tata partnership with academic institutions is aimed at supporting university faculty and students through funded research programmes, sabbaticals, fellowships, and engagements with university leadership, as well as studying long-term research outcomes related to key market needs.
“It is the Tata group’s vision to touch the lives of 25 per cent of the world’s population. To accomplish this vision, we are engaging with the best research institutions around the world to enable sustainable market development in the regions we work and live. This collaborative platform will allow Tata companies to work closely with these leading universities and I have no doubt that the exciting research at these institutions will be strengthened by the market understanding of the Tata group to create outcomes that matter to the world,” said Katragadda.
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