Driver-less car challenge by Mahindra-Rise

(Team Indian Roadies, SRM University, Chennai)

The driverless car challenge was organized by the Mahindra group. It was a challenge, open for universities and corporates to develop an idea for self-driving cars suitable for Indian conditions. The groups have to come up with a design, component analysis, justification for the use of those components, algorithms and how to implement them and cost analysis of the vehicle. The system was to be implemented in Mahindra XUV 500 vehicle for trials.

Our team ‘Indian Roadies’ group of 4 members, headed by me, from SRM University, Chennai, participated in the challenge. It was a 1.5 year of challenge with different levels of study and analysis. We cleared all 3 stages, which include ‘The initial planning and innovation stage’, ‘The design and components stage’, ‘ The algorithms stage’ and finally we reached the final presentation stage with the core research group of Mahindra.

Skills and knowledge: Electronic Control Units (ECU), RADARS, LIDARS, electronic sensors, algorithms.

Software and programs used: OpenCV, MATLAB, Python.