Autoelectronics 2021

Automotive Electronics as a key enabler of the New Age Mobility

A summary of the first SAEINDIA Auto Electronics 2021 Conference

SAEINDIA organized its first Auto Electronics Conference on 30^th April 2021 with the theme – The New Age Mobility: Smart, Safe, Connected and Sustainable with Dr Shankar Venugopal, Vice President, Mahindra & Mahindra as the Convener of the conference. The conference covered a gamut of topics over the course of the day that included Electric Mobility, Autonomous vehicles, Connected vehicles, Automotive software development, ISO 26262, Growth of Electronics in Automotive applications, Vehicle connectivity, telematics and infotainment. The agenda comprised of four Plenary sessions and two Panel discussions with over 25+ senior leaders and experts as speakers and panellists from leading companies such as Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Ansys, Bosch, Aptiv, Infosys, Vitesco, Mahindra Electric, Infineon, Hexagon, Tata Technologies, Danlaw Technologies, Cummins India, Frost & Sullivan, etc and academic institutions such as IIT Madras, IIT Hyderabad etc. The one-day conference had over 200+ participants throughout the day with its excellent technical content and unending enthusiasm.

Fig 1. Mr R Velusamy, Chief Global Product Development (Automotive), Mahindra & Mahindra delivering the Chief Guest address with Mrs Rashmi Urdhwareshe, President, SAEINDIA & Dr Shankar Venugopal, Vice President, Mahindra & Mahindra in the panel.

The conference was inaugurated with a Welcome Address by Mrs Rashmi Urdhwareshe, President, SAEINDIA followed by the Chief Guest Address by Mr R Velusamy, Chief Global Product Development (Automotive), Mahindra & Mahindra which touched upon leveraging the emerging technology trends and a strong focus on improving user experience as key enablers for a successful automotive product in the current scenario. Dr Prith Banerjee, CTO, Ansys delivered the Guest of Honour Address which emphasized on Simulation being a major player for pro-active designing and determining the risk factors which helps in designing a safe and well performing product for various scenarios.

Fig 2. Dr Prith Banerjee, CTO - Global, Ansys delivering the Guest of Honour Address

The first plenary session of the day was “Electric Mobility” chaired by Mr Sundaresan S A, Vice President

EV & E-mobility solutions, Ashok Leyland with two eminent speakers from Bosch namely Ms Latha Chembrakalam, Vice President – Powertrain & Electrification, Bosch and Mr Pradeep Kumar Keloth, Head of Electrification, Bosch. Ms Latha talked on the emerging trends in E-mobility like Autonomous vehicles, Cyber security, etc. Mr Pradeep covered the importance of system engineering and simulation and w.r.t FOC Control strategy for PMSM machines used in

The second plenary session was on “Autonomous & Connected Vehicles” with Mr Tarun Aggarwal, Executive Vice President - Electrical, xEV and Connected Systems, Maruti Suzuki as Session Chair. The keynote addresses were delivered by Dr Arunkumar Sampath, Chief Engineer & Head Innovation & Global EV Tech Center, Mahindra Electric and Mr Keerthi Kiran, Principal Engineer, Aptiv Technical Center India. Dr Arunkumar elaborately presented on Mobile Edge Computing and Data Monetization in Connected Vehicles using 5G Networks. Mr Kiran presented on Autonomous vehicles and the different sensors like Radar, LiDAR, etc. that can be used for detection of vehicles and other stationary and dynamic bodies.

Fig 3. Dr Arunkumar Sampath, Chief Engineer and Head - Global Innovation and EV Tech Centre, Mahindra Electric delivering his keynote address on Mobile Edge Computing and Data Monetization in Connected Vehicles using 5G Networks

The second half of the day started off with an interesting panel discussion on “Scarcity of chips - How India plans to tackle the growing demand?” with Dr Shankar Venugopal as Moderator and for the panellists, we had a very distinct and diverse panel of members featuring Mr Ramachandran S, Principal Consultant, Infosys Knowledge Institute; Professor Amit RK, IIT Madras; Mr.Kaushik Madhavan, Vice President - Mobility, Frost & Sullivan; Dr Anuradda Ganesh, Chief Technical Advisor & Director, Cummins; Dr.Karthik Sundarraj, Technical Advisor (To M.D), Hexagon India. The discussion started with setting the context on why there is such an acute shortage of chips globally. The discussion covered various strategies that India can adopt to effectively manage the growing demand for automotive IC chips – supply chain strategy, government policies, long-term technology roadmaps and consortia, industry – academia collaboration etc. The panel discussion concluded with a big, audacious goal from each participant. India can become the global hub for sustainable mobility if we bring in all the ideas together as a self-reliant and resilient strategy for Atma Nirbhar Bharat.

Fig 4. Scarcity of chips - How India plans to tackle the growing demand? – Panelists (from upper left to right) Dr Shankar Venugopal, Mr Ramachandran S, Dr Anuradda Ganesh, Dr Karthik Sundarraj, Prof. Amit R K and Mr Kaushik Madhavan.

The third plenary session named “Automotive Software Development” had Mr Chandan Sawhney, Head

- Advanced Engineering, Tata Motors as the Session Chair with 2 impressive keynote addresses from Dr Rajalakshmi, Professor, IIT Hyderabad on LiDAR Technology and the research being done using the technology which can make it very cost effective and user friendly, and Mr Jeetendra Ashok, Sr. Manager

Regional Product Marketing, Infineon Technologies on the usage of NOR Memories in Automotive and Functional Safety (ISO 26262).

The fourth and final plenary session of the day was “Growth of Electronics in Automotive” with Mr Avinash Kale, Director & Head of OEM & Application Engineering, Infineon Technologies as the Session Chair. The first keynote of the session was presented by Mr Binoy Paul, Head of Electrical & Electronics Product Development, Mahindra & Mahindra who spoke on Driving differentiation with automotive electronics with focus on smart personalisation, usage of cloud, AI, future vehicle architectures – domain controllers, Human interface – touch, voice, gesture, connectivity to infrastructure and cloud - CV2X. Mr Chandrashekhar Patil, Director – Engineering, Visteon India presented the second keynote address on the latest connectivity trends in Automotive and how it is going to be the game changer in terms of User experience and vehicle management.

The second Panel discussion of the day was a rather ‘ahead of its time’ topic on “5G to 6G - How India should strategize for the transition from 5G to 6G?” with India in its initial stage of 5G integration. The panel was moderated by Mr.Krishnananda Shenoy, Associate Vice President, Head of IOT and Connectivity Technologies, Infosys. The panellists were Mr Franck Euvrard, Executive Vice President - Global Engineering, Research and Development, Tata Technologies Ltd; Mr Sirish Batchu, Managing Director, Danlaw Technologies; Mr Shitalkumar Joshi, Technical Director, Electrical and Electronics – Ansys India. The panel started off with how India is going to extract the maximum potential of 4G and 5G, with 5G just being introduced in India and many other countries. The panel shared good insights on how we should orchestrate the transition from 5G to 6G.

Fig 5. Mr Venkataraj, DDG, SAEINDIA introducing the panellists in the “5G to 6G - How India should strategize for the transition from 5G to 6G?” panel discussion.

The conference concluded with a Valedictory session with Dr Pratap Kumar, Director, NIELIT Chennai who addressed on the emerging contours of Automotive Electronics and shared his vision of putting up a global Centre of Excellence infrastructure for Automotive Electronics in Chennai which will help many projects and the growth of electronics in India with schemes like Make in India and Atma Nirbhar Bharat. Dr Shankar Venugopal summed up the conference proceedings as Convener with salient points and key takeaways. Mr Venkataraj, DDG, SAEINDIA gave the Vote of Thanks and concluded the conference in style!