IIT Kharagpur in R&D pact with GM

General Motors (GM) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, have joined hands to carry out collaborative research in vehicle electronics, controls and software for an initial investment of Rs 5 crore.

The lab will be co-managed by GM's India Research Lab (ISL) in Bangalore and IIT-Kharagpur's Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy Unit. Research done at the new Collaborative Research Lab (CRL) will be shared within GM's global research and development network. GM and IIT-Kharagpur will sign the formal agreement on Friday.

According to GM Executive Director (R&D) Alan Taub, the lab will focus on system and software architectures, software development, verification and validation for high integrity software, vehicle systems health monitoring, communication and security in networking.

He pointed out that 5 per cent of the value-add in luxury vehicles was electronics controls a few years ago.

"By 2015, 40 per cent of value-add in luxury vehicles will be electronics control and software. We expect collaborative research on these areas to contribute to our R&D initiatives," he added.

Initially, a team of 16 engineers will work at the CRL for a period of five years. GM has a similar agreement with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore. It recently renewed the agreement with IISc, Bangalore, for collaborative research work.

IIT-Kharagpur is one of only a dozen institutions around the world involved in the CRL programme with General Motors. Some of the other institutions are University of Michigan, Carnegie-Mellon University, Stanford University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, MIT and RWTH-Aachen in Germany.

Taub said the significance of expertise in electronics, controls and software technology is becoming more important to the automotive industry. "These technologies are applied to the vehicle development. We have presently 45 such live projects running in India in association with ISL, Bangalore. They include short-term projects with various institutions and companies as well as long-term CRL projects," he added.

The tie-up is also aimed at jointly developing a new education curriculum for a postgraduate degree in electronics, controls and software (ECS).

"The automotive industry needs talent to address new issues. We will develop the curriculum and infrastructure for master's degree and doctoral programmes in the ECS area over the next eight months," said GM's ISL Director Prakash Bharati.