IIT Madras to Develop ‘Extended Reality’ Centre for SAIL

Representatives from IIT Madras and SAIL exchange the MoU on the collaboration

The IIT Madras and SAIL collaborated to develop the application of Extended Reality (XR) and other technologies in Steel manufacturing.

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is going to develop an ‘Extended Reality’ (XR) Centre for 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 Madras to promote Research and Development (R&D) in the domain of Extended Reality.

An MoU towards this collaboration was signed recently between SAIL-MTI and IIT Madras for collaboration on the application of Extended Reality (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.

Prof. M. Manivannan, Department of Applied Mechanics, IIT Madras, and Principle 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.

Sanjeev Kumar, Executive Director (HRD), SAIL-MTI, Ranchi, said, “SAIL is partnering with IIT Madras for effective use of various advanced technologies for design and development of innovative training programs, for the training 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.

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