Continental's Technical Center India inks pact with IIT-Palakkad for research on autonomous driving tech

MUMBAI: Continental's Technical Center India (TCI) has signed a pact with IIT-Palakkad for a 3-year joint research programme, focusing on autonomous driving technologies, connected mobility and safety solutions. Under the collaboration, Continental and IIT-Palakkad will research, develop and build competencies in optimising high-performance computing, simulation models for image and video processing chain for autonomous driving, and autonomous mobility safety features based on human vision features, and advanced safety solutions for intelligent battery sensing module, Continental said in a statement.

The agreement will create an opportunity to utilise the technical expertise of Continental and the academic prowess of IIT–Palakkad to collaborate in these areas, it said. Continental said it will also offer internship opportunities and design special coursework in sync with current and upcoming industry trends to benefit IIT-Palakkad students. "With this programme, we will have a strong emphasis on joint research projects complementing automotive mega trends. We believe this programme will mutually benefit the two partners in terms of acquiring technology competence and academic excellence," said Latha Chembrakalam, Head of Technical Center India (TCI) at Continental.

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This programme aims to develop niche skills for both Continental and IIT-Palakkad, as per the statement. The research project will be offered in the form of internships to students who will be assisting Continental's topic experts. "We are delighted to join hands with Continental to create a unique programme to boost industry-academia association. With this initiative, we want to set a benchmark that will help us accomplish some of the unique industry problem statements while ensuring real-time technical exposure for our students.

Our academic know-how will promote this programme in the right direction," said Santhakumar, dean of industry collaboration and sponsored research at IIT-Palakkad. To make the collaboration more interactive and insightful, hackathons and competitive challenges will be organised for the students. With this structure and special courseworks, Continental and IIT-Palakkad aim to groom students into highly competitive industry-ready talents, Continental said.