Photo: HCIL, IIT Delhi MoU Signing Ceremony: (Left to Right) Mr Atsushi Ogawa, Chief Operating Officer, Honda R&D Co., Ltd., Japan; Mr. Takuya Tsumura, President & CEO, HCIL; Prof. Rangan Banerjee, Director, IIT Delhi; Prof. Ambuj Sagar, Dy Director (Strategy & Planning), IIT Delhis

New Delhi: Honda Cars India Limited (HCIL) has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IIT Delhi to further advance Honda CI (Cooperative Intelligence), which is an AI that enables mutual understanding between machines and people through cooperative action and communication using environment, scene and intention understanding.

The MoU was signed by Prof. Preeti Ranjan Panda, Dean, Corporate Relations and Prof. Naresh Bhatnagar, Dean (R&D), IIT Delhi and Mr. Udit Kumar, Senior Vice President & Director, HCIL in the presence of Prof. Rangan Banerjee, Director, IIT Delhi and Mr. Takuya Tsumura, President & CEO, Honda Cars India Limited (HCIL).

IIT Delhi is home to a large number of excellent researchers and engineers. Under the MoU, engineers from both HCIL and Honda R&D Co., Ltd. a R&D subsidiary of Honda, will participate in the joint research with IIT Delhi researchers to advance the underlying technologies of CI, with an eye toward the future applications for technologies that reduce traffic collisions and enable automated driving.

Prof. Preeti Ranjan Panda, Dean, Corporate Relations, IIT Delhi, said, “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 leverage IIT Delhi's advanced research and Honda’s expertise in practical applications to fast-track innovation and create solutions that benefit both customers and society across a wide range of applications.”

Honda, which has been working on research and development of CI is currently conducting technology demonstrations as a proof of concept of its CI-powered micro-mobility vehicle/robot in Joso City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.

Aiming to achieve further advancement of CI, Honda and IIT Delhi have set joint research themes such as recognition of the surrounding environment and cultivation of cooperative behavior, and will conduct joint research and development while utilizing cutting-edge AI technologies.

Moreover, for each research theme, Honda associates and professors of IIT Delhi will jointly engage with the Institute’s students for planning, designing, developing and testing technologies, which work beyond the confines of the laboratory and thereby proceed with the research and development more flexibly and with a high degree of freedom. This will enable Honda and IIT Delhi to work more flexibly with a deeper exchange of academic and industry insights.

In addition, as part of this joint research, Honda, with the help of IIT Delhi, aims to verify driving assistance and automated driving technologies in the suburbs of Delhi. By conducting technology verification in Delhi’s traffic environment Honda and IIT Delhi will refine the underlying technologies of CI and strive to apply them to future driver assistance and automated driving technologies in various regions of the world, including India.

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