It took more
than a month for V Vinay to write algorithms for an autonomous cargo vehicle his
company was building. The autonomy and control algorithms were a crucial
milestone in its development. Vinay developed them as a set of mathematical
rules that needed to be coded and tested on a computer, then on the vehicle. He
called his senior colleagues for a presentation.
Vinay is a
former professor of computer science at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
and one of the early researchers in machine learning in India. Fifteen years
ago, he had helped invent the Simputer, a hand-held computing device developed
for rural India. Vinay set up Ati Technologies last year to develop autonomous
vehicles, with two other cofounders. One of them was the 15-year-old Saad
Nasser.
Nasser listened
to Vinay as he presented his algorithms to a few key people in the company. The
presentation was followed by a 30-minute discussion. While Vinay was explaining
his ideas to his colleagues, Nasser was busy coding the algorithms. “It is
working,” Nasser announced, as soon as Vinay finished his explanations.
Vinay had respect
for Nasser’s intellectual abilities, but he was taken aback by the speed and
sophistication of Nasser’s work. “It was not so simple,” says Vinay. “I was
surprised that he could code so fast.”
Nasser also
developed a simulation engine and tested the algorithms. Within a few weeks,
the algorithms will be loaded on the small prototype cargo vehicle Ati
Technologies has designed and developed. Next month, this will be road-tested
on the campus of IISc. Ati will then build a commercial model, to be sold early
in 2019.
FROM
SQUARE ONE
“Most autonomous
vehicle companies use existing vehicles,” says Saurabh Chandra, the third
cofounder and the main funder of Ati. “It is like removing a horse and putting
an engine on a horse cart. This is the horseless carriage era. Even the name is
similar: the driverless car.”
Ati Technologies
makes a departure from this practice by designing the cargo vehicle from
scratch. “We don’t use the term driverless. We build the vehicle ground up for
autonomy,” says Chandra. When built for a specific cargo vehicle market, a
fresh design provides advantages — no need for airbags, steering wheels, doors
or safety requirements for passengers. Ati wants the vehicle ultimately on
public roads, but isolated campuses provide opportunity to test ideas while the
government develops regulations.
Starting from
scratch involves designing and developing many components — the chassis, motor,
battery pack, composite material, autonomy and control algorithms. The vehicle,
although small, is meant for carrying up to one tonne of cargo. So it had to be
strong, with a small but powerful electric motor, something that was not
readily available in the market. “It had to be one-fourth the size of a
standard motor but had to deliver five times its power,” says Lukhman Khan,
founder of Clarion Engineering Company, which is working with Ati to develop
the motor. “It wasn’t easy to develop.”
There were other
differences too, from standard motors. Ati would use an induction motor instead
of a brushless DC motor mostly used in electric vehicles (EVs).
Ati did a
battery pack design from scratch, also using novel ideas not usually found in
EVs or elsewhere.
To begin with,
its design team decided to use liquid cooling instead of air cooling because of
its small size and power. “In summer, temperatures in north India go up to
45°C. Battery life will then reduce drastically.” Since it is cooled by a
liquid, Ati’s battery pack will supposedly not have this problem.
The prototype
motor is almost ready and will be used in the trial run in January. “We chose
induction motors because they are more efficient over a wider speed range,”
says Nasser. Even with a 1-tonne load, the vehicle will have a 60-km range.
The prototype is
mainly for testing autonomy and control algorithms and has no serious
limitation of weight. But a commercial model had to be light, at least 40% more
than the prototype made of iron, and yet strong enough to carry 1 tonne. The
material had to be inexpensive too. Ati teamed up with Zstrand, a company
developing advanced composites. “The structure that supports load will be a
novel composite,” says Gosakan Aravamudan, founder-CEO, Zstrand. “It will be a
pathbreaking solution when developed.”
UNIQUE
SELLING POINTS
Advanced
composites are expected to play an important role in the development of EVs,
and so offers Ati the option of spinning off a company manufacturing
composites. The algorithms may have wider uses, and so probably can be part of
a separate business later. The battery design is also unique and battery
manufacturing can be part of a separate company too.
The vehicle has
a tadpole configuration, with two wheels in the front and one at the back. It
has no steering and turns because of the differential speeds of the two front
wheels. This unique configuration will let it rotate full circle at one place,
a tough thing to achieve with one tonnne of load.
The vehicle is
sensor-rich, with Lidar, radar and four cameras, thus making it ideal for
autonomous surveys. The powerful battery can supply refrigeration during
transport. The Ati team had aimed at such versatility from the beginning.
“Modern factory campuses are remarkably similar around the world,” says
Chandra.
Ati Technologies
has a 25-member design and development team, with specialists in many domains.
Nasser is the glue that holds all of them together and so, functions as the
unofficial chief technology officer. “Only Nasser knows the nuts and bolts of
the vehicle,” quips Vinay. “It is locked up in his brain.”
Ati Technologies
is now forming partnerships for future development. Chiranjib Bhattacharya,
professor at the IISc computer science department, will help with further
technology development in autonomy. Radhakant Padhi, professor at IISc
aerospace engineering department, will help with control theory algorithms. All
the development work has so far been done in Bengaluru. “The only expertise we
did not find here was in software-related to autonomy,” says Vinay.
Source: THE ECONOMIC TIMES-21st December,2017
