Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) will develop an ‘Extended Reality’ (XR) Centre for the public sector Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL).
The centre, coming up at Management Training Institute (MTI), a unit of SAIL located at Ranchi, would showcase the latest Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality/Mixed Reality (AR/VR/MR) and Haptic Technologies.
SAIL will utilise the advanced technologies created at the newly established eXperiential Technology Innovation Centre (XTIC) at IIT-M to promote Research and Development (R&D) in the Extended Reality domain.
A MoU towards this collaboration was signed recently between SAIL-MTI and IIT-Madras for collaboration on the application of XR and other technologies in Steel manufacturing.
The SAIL-MTI has requested IIT-Madras to be a knowledge partner in the design, development and deployment of short-term and long term new age trainings and lab for training purposes, a press release from IIT-M said today.
Prof.M.Manivannan, Department of Applied Mechanics, IIT-M and Principal Investigator, XTIC-IIT Madras, said “XR Technologies has the potential to add value in many aspects of steel making and probably the entire lifecycle of steel.”
This XTIC is India’s first Research and Product Innovation centre for XR and haptics Technology, a transdisciplinary centre encompassing several fields of engineering, medicine, psychology and arts. As XR is highly interdisciplinary, innovations in this field need a confluence of minds from different fields, he said.
Mr Sanjeev Kumar, Executive Director (HRD), SAIL-MTI, Ranchi, said “SAIL is proud to handshake with IIT Madras for effective use of various advanced technologies for design and development of innovative Training programs using new age technologies of Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, Extended Reality, Drones, 3-D printing, Robotics and Haptics.”
The XTIC will not only develop XR technologies for SAIL-MTI, but will also impart training to concerned SAIL employees on XR technology and help them in future XR/VR system for their use.
The XTIC has established ‘CAVE,’ a consortium of start-ups and industries in the field of XR and Haptics in India. The ecosystem led by XTIC will be roped in to design future Digital Twins for SAIL-MTI.
