TU Munich Joins Hands with IITKGP to Promote Research & Industry Cooperation in Transportation

Technical University of Munich, Germany, one of the globally renowned institutes, which is in its 150th year of operation has joined hands with the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT-KGP), one of the premier technology institutes in the country, to set up an Indo-German Collaborative Research Center on Intelligent Transportation Systems at IIT Kharagpur. This aims at promoting research and industry cooperation between the two countries in the domain of transportation. This would include next-generation cars, green transportation, seamlessly connected transportation medium, customization of advanced German transport solutions for Indian scenarios and so on, IIT KGP officials said. The two premier institutes have signed a MoU to this effect. The German institute incidentally is celebrating its 150th year.

“The Center will be the first of its kind for TUM in India and raise our engagement with India to a new level. In an increasingly global world, mobility is one of the key challenges, which the Center will address for the benefit of both countries”, said Harald Olk, director of the TU Munich International Center.

Prof Pallab Dasgupta, dean, sponsored research and industrial consultancy at IIT Kharagpur, on his parts, said, “This will be a key enabler for learning from our German counterparts and will open up opportunities for us to bring our expertise in software and artificial intelligence towards partnering in challenges of transportation planning and regulation, connected cars and autonomous driver assistance systems.”

Interestingly, most of the innovation in high-end German cars are in electronics and software. Given India’s leadership position in the software and services industry, a cooperation between the two countries is also essential for developing high-end cars of the future that have many software-controlled functionalities. The center will focus on combining German excellence in engineering with India’s prowess in software and systems engineering. And Prof P P Chakrabarti, director, IIT Kharagpur, said that IIT Kharagpur is well positioned for playing a leadership role in the mobility roadmap of the country.

“We are confident that this initiative will be mutually enriching for academic and industrial collaborations in the domain. We look forward to expanding our relationship with TU Munich in many other domains as well,” said Prof Chakrabarti.

Prof Samarjit Chakraborty from TU Munich, who is also the lead investigator of the project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), said that the goal now is to create a sustainable R&D ecosystem around this Center through a close institutional cooperation as well as researchers and industry partners.