Mangaluru: Students of the Srinivas University Institute of Engineering & Technology (SUIET), Mukka, on Thursday showcased two indigenous artificial intelligence-driven innovations, an autonomous electric vehicle and an AI-powered reception robot.The six-seater AI-based autonomous electric vehicle, christened ‘Sri Vahan’, has been developed by students under the guidance of Prof Vishwas C Shetty. Built by retrofitting an existing electric vehicle to keep costs low, the vehicle integrates LiDAR, AI-based vision, GPS navigation and an AI assistant.Designed with patient transport in mind, the vehicle can be integrated with an ambulance rerouting application. Powered by a 5-kW lithium-ion battery, it has a range of 20 km on a single charge, and a battery backup of around 90 minutes. It can reach 28 kmph in manual mode and 5 kmph in autonomous mode. The project, completed in six months at a cost of Rs 4-5 lakh, was led technically by research associate Vishak Mendon, with contributions from students Shreyas, Adwitiya, Ujjwal, Akshay, Manjunath and Prakhyath.SRINIBOT, an AI-powered reception and visitor assistance robot designed to welcome visitors, that answers queries and provides information about the university through natural voice interaction was also unveiled. Standing 5 ft tall, the robot features face recognition, an 11.6-inch interactive touchscreen, multilingual communication and an AI-based voice assistant. It can operate for 8-10 hours on a single charge.Developed in just one month at a cost of Rs 5 lakh, SRINIBOT was guided by Akhil KP and executed by research associates Niketh Jadav, Joyal Jose and Samarth Naganur.
