IIT Kgp inks MoU with TU Munich to set up intelligent transport research centre

Kolkata: IIT Kharagpur and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) from Germany have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for setting up an Indo-German Collaborative Research Centre on Intelligent Transportation Systems at IIT Kharagpur, to promote 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, customisation of advanced German transport solutions for Indian scenarios, etc.

"The centre 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 centre will address, for the benefit of both countries," said Dr. Harald Olk, director of TU Munich International Centre on signing of the MoU by the president of TU Munich, on the occasion of the university's 150th anniversary.

"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," said Prof Pallab Dasgupta, dean, Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy at IIT Kharagpur.

The centre will focus on combining German excellence in engineering with India's prowess in software and systems engineering. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which aims to bring together the two institutes towards establishing the centre.

"IIT Kharagpur is well positioned for playing a leadership role in the mobility roadmap of the country. We warmly welcome TU Munich as an institutional partner in our way forward. 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. P P Chakrabarti, director, IIT Kharagpur.