The inauguration of the Sustainable Mobility and Automotive Research Technology (SMART) Center at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri campus, Kerala, was held at Amriteshwari Hall on September 8, 2023. The SMART Center is a state-of-the-art research center focused on Smart Mobility research technologies, including Vehicle Energy Management Systems, Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) & Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) technology, Battery Charging Strategies and Battery Management System, Electric Motor Design & Modelling.

The center is designed to develop technologies for building Autonomous Vehicles and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) with advanced perception and decision-making capabilities, which includes developing sophisticated deep learning, computer vision, and navigation algorithms. The event was inaugurated by Dr. Shankar Venugopal, VP, Mahindra & Mahindra.

The event included a Welcome Address and Center Explanation by Head of the Center Dr. Rajesh Kannan Megalingam , followed by the Chief Guest Address by Dr. Shankar Venugopal, Vice President, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Expert Talks were also given on “Autonomous Parking Systems for the Smart Vehicles” by Dr. Rakesh Rajegowda , Function Owner – Computer Vision from Valeo India, Pvt. Ltd. and on “Innovation Through Simulation using Ansys” by Shri Abhimanyu Singh, Technical Leader – Academic from Ansys Software Pvt. Ltd, Bengaluru.

Br. Achyutamrita Chaitanya, Dr. Balakrishnan Shankar and Dr. S N Jyothi graced the occasion and conveyed their best wishes to the SMART Center team.

The SMART Center research projects will be carried out under the following broad areas:

• Autonomous and Connected Vehicles (ACV) – Automated Driving, ADAS, Driver-in-the-loop simulation, V2V and V2X communications
• Electrification (ELE) – Energy storage, Hybrid and electric powertrain, EV charging and grid interaction, Electric machine design
• Control and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) – Planning, Control, AI/ML/DL, Sensor Fusion

The SMART Center is a significant development for Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham , as it is a state-of-the-art research center in the field of Smart Mobility research technologies. The SMART Center is directed by Dr. Rajesh Kannan Megalingam , who is the Director of Humanitarian Technology ( HuT ) Labs, Head of the Amrita Coconut Research and Development (ACORD), and Professor at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.

Two projects started in SMART Center:

Self Driving Go-Cart:

1.  Instrumenting Electric Vehicle with Lidar and Vision sensors for Driving Dataset to enable training for Perception and Navigation algorithms for Indian rural and Semi-Urban autonomous driving.
2. Suitable for Object detection and Localization, tracking, other computer vision techniques such as Semantic Segmentation/Instance Segmentation .

Unveiling Dhruv – Intelligent E-bike:

• E-bike powered by intelligent software with sensors for health monitoring.
• Equipped with a smart dashboard for displaying prognosis and diagnostics of battery usage.
• Won “Future Award” in SIEP E-Bike Challenge 2023, a platform for Electric Mobility design organized by the Imperial Society of Innovative Engineers