Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra not too long ago shared a video on social media of a modified Bolero SUV with self-driving functionality, navigating the busy Bhopal streets. The particular person behind the transformation, Sanjeev Sharma of Swaayatt Robots mentioned he had demonstrated a know-how able to navigate Indian streets.

In an interview to News18, he mentioned his startup is a competitor to Elon Musk’s Tesla. Whereas most specialists say that absolutely autonomous vehicles are nonetheless 10 years away, together with Tesla, Sharma mentioned with funding and sources, his startup can obtain this purpose quickly.

“What we’re demonstrating is a tech able to navigate the visitors of India with utmost accuracy. We’re already a competitor of Tesla. Give us some extra funding and sources and we are able to actually remedy the automation downside by the top of the yr,” mentioned Sharma, who’s the CEO and founding father of Swaayatt Robots.

Sharma defined the way it all started and the way his firm grew to become a viable contender to Tesla. Recalling his IIT Roorkee days, he mentioned his journey started when he got here throughout some movies by the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise (MIT) for the DARPA City Problem, which ignited his ardour for exploring the complexities of autonomous driving in dynamic visitors environments.

Over time, Sharma constructed a powerful mathematical basis to have the ability to develop the autonomous driving know-how that social media customers noticed within the viral video. Not solely IIT Roorkee, he hung out in Israel as a analysis assistant professor, spent a tenure on the College of Alberta in pc science, and was a analysis assistant to Professor Richard S Sutton, who is taken into account the godfather of reinforcement studying.

Sharma based Swaayatt Robots in 2015, after he returned to India in 2014. He marked the formalisation of his aspirations, initially propelled by a modest funding of his personal funds. Over time, he mentioned, the staff meticulously polished its know-how via analysis and testing, clocking over a number of demos on Indian roads.

The current Bolero testing close to Kankali Kali Mata temple in Bhopal was their eightieth try. “On the coronary heart of Swaayatt Robots lies a dedication to basic analysis and growth,” he mentioned, including, “we’ve pioneered developments in synthetic intelligence, arithmetic, and theoretical pc science, leveraging reinforcement studying to redefine autonomous navigation.”

A cornerstone achievement of Swaayatt Robots lies of their profitable integration of autonomous know-how into a various vary of automobiles, notably the Mahindra Bolero SUV, Sharma mentioned.

“By automating the Bolero, we’ve demonstrated the universality of our know-how,” he mentioned, whereas highlighting the truth that “this underscores {our capability} to automate any car on the planet. And, if we are able to run an automatic automobile in India, then we are able to run it wherever”.

Sharma mentioned when it comes to off-road and on-road driving, navigating the trail, avoiding high-speed visitors in addition to animals on the street, and impediment avoidance at excessive pace, Swaayatt Robots is able to doing all this.

“In sure areas, we’re not simply competing however main… And folks can look into all our off-road autonomous driving demos. They will evaluate it with the Kodiak Robotics demo, or the RACER program,” he mentioned.

“We’re doing each on and off-road. There is no such thing as a firm, any startup, that may handle each on and off-road and we’ve performed it in simply $3 million funding that we acquired in 2021,” he added.

However, relating to extra growth and commercialisation of this know-how, Sharma mentioned taking the following step will want extra funding. “At current, further funding is the important thing barrier to scaling up our know-how. With an funding of round $15 million, we will increase our presence and speed up the event of our autonomous navigation options,” he mentioned.