Honda Cars India and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi have partnered to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) tool for safe driving that uses environment, scene, and purpose understanding to enable cooperative action and communication between machines and humans.

The institute said in a release that engineers from Honda Cars and Honda R&D Co., a subsidiary of Honda, will collaborate with IIT Delhi researchers to advance the underlying technologies of Honda Cooperative Intelligence (CI), the Japanese automaker's AI tool. This is in accordance with the memorandum of understanding (MoU). It stated, "They will keep an eye toward the future applications for technologies that reduce traffic collisions and enable automated driving.”

IIT Delhi
Image Source: IIT Delhi

According to Preeti Ranjan Panda, dean of corporate relations at IIT-Delhi, "the mobility industry is experiencing significant change, driven by a growing demand for sustainable and functional products powered by AI technologies that are shaping its future." "This partnership aims to fast-track innovation and create solutions that benefit both customers and society across a wide range of applications by leveraging the advanced research capabilities of IIT Delhi and Honda's experience in practical applications," she stated.

Future Applications and Global Impact

As a proof of concept for their CI-powered micro-mobility vehicle/robot, Honda is presently demonstrating the technology at Joso City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.

According to the statement, "Honda and IIT Delhi have set joint research themes such as recognition of the surrounding environment and cultivation of cooperative behaviour, and will conduct joint research and development while utilising cutting-edge AI technologies."

Honda colleagues and IIT Delhi academics will collaborate with the institute's students on each research area in order to plan, design, develop, and test technologies. It stated that as a result, Honda and IIT Delhi will be able to collaborate more freely and exchange more in-depth knowledge from academia and business.

Additionally, Honda and IIT Delhi are working together to validate automated driving and driving assistance technologies in Delhi's suburbs as part of this cooperative research project.

The release said that Honda and IIT Delhi would work to improve the foundational CI technologies and apply them to future driver assistance and automated driving systems in different parts of the world, including India, by undertaking technology verification in Delhi's traffic environment.

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