Kolkata, April 29 (IANS) Self-driving shuttles for in-campus travel, designed by a team of ex-students from IIT-Kharagpur’s Robotics Research Group, would reduce operating costs by 40 to 60 percent, a statement from the institute said on Friday.
Powered by electricity, Auro Shuttles, launched by Nalin Gupta, Jit Ray Chowdhury and Srinivas Reddy of the Group and Y-Combinator, uses latest technology to ensure safe navigation even on busy roads. It eliminates the cost of a driver.
“The shuttle can be used 24×7 and in all weather conditions. No special rails or dedicated pathways are required for its operation. The vehicle is equipped with lasers, camera, radar and GPS. The shuttles rely on a prior 3D map of the environment. It uses this 3D map to localise itself and interpret road topography,” the statement said.
Passengers can feed in destinations through a touch screen mounted on the vehicle, or through their mobile app.
The underlying software automatically figures out the optimum high-level route to reach the destination safely, the statement said.