ARAI unveils testing solutions at Automotive Testing Expo 2012 in Chennai Trade Centre

March 8, 2012 - PRLog -- The Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), a cooperative industrial research association by the automotive industry with the Ministry of Industries, Government of India has displayed various testing solutions, taking part in the Automotive Testing Expo 2012 being held at Chennai Trade Centre, Nandambakkam, Chennai in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

ARAI offers comprehensive R&D services in the fields of engine development, alternate fuels, Noice, Vibration and Harshness, computer aided engineering, structural dynamics, automotive electronics and materials. It also offers expert services in testing, certification and homologation of complete vehicles, engines, systems and components. What is more, ARAI covers the areas of vehicle evaluation, emission, safety, materials, EMI and EMC.

Furthermore, ARAI also offers a slew of other services including technology demonstration projects, turnkey consultancy, calibration and specialsed training programmes. It also assists the Government of India in formulation of automotive standards and acts as the secretariat for WP29 activities. Besides that, it also conducts a post graduate course in Automotive Engineering, along with Vellore Institute of Technology.

While speaking to Automotive Horizon, in an exclusive interview, DJ Kulkarni, Senior Deputy Director of ARAI said: "This machine which is displayed in the vehicle captures the whole thing, 'Roads to the Tracks and Tracks to the Laboratory'. The vehicles which are moving on the Indian roads are different from the vehicles that are plying in Europe or North America. Indian roads are typical, with many inherrent problems. We have developed so many instruments, which can precisely pin point various parameters such as temperatures, acceleration, vibrations, everything we can capture into this. What we are trying to do is given the fact the modern day drivers are dynamic, we will analyse what are their driving styles and driving patterns. So all these datas are captured by the machine. Now, when we are designing a vehicle, this data collected by us will help the car maker to customise their vehicles according to the results of the data. For instance, if the manufacturer wants to get these kinds of feedback, they will have to try their vehicle out on the road to evaluate the enduarance of the vehicles, it will take ages. What we are trying to do is that with the datas that are available, we can now design a drivecycle for the customer in the particular market. We subject the vehcile to the laboratory condition to find out whether the vehicle is safer and meets all the parameters based on the data with us, accordingly we can tweak the vehicle. If not, we can do further verification and fix the issues. This is the overview of what we are doing.

There is a whole lot of experience which is involved in collecting the data. One is collecting the enromous amount of field data, how to filter that data and derive a drive cycle, how to inject the drive cycle on to the vehicle and if something fails how to improve that. These are the experience we have and we are bringing it our customers. This kind of experiments we do all across the country and even places like China, Korea, Europe and many customers now have recognised for this kind of expertise and giving us this kind of projects.

We have extended this service to all automtive OEMs and along with that the most important thing is some of the sensor technologies are all developed by our own research department. So, these sensors or data recorders are actually mounted on the vehicle are designed by ARAI team. These sensors are all indigenous. All those sensors can be connected to the vehicle and when you drive the vehicle, the entire data will be downloaded.

Is this test mandatory?

Homologation is the minimum the OE has to satisfy in any case. We are not trying to go beyond that. We are extending the help to them and doing extensive research on their behalf. We are actually trying to have competencies at our end to be able to help the OEMs to design their vehicles properly. Many established brand names whose vehicles are doing far excellently in Europe have faced problems in India. Our climatic conditions are different and our dusty conditions are different from Europe. If you drive on the dusty roads of India, the filters of the cars get chocked and your radiator is likely to burst. These kinds of harsh conditions they have never imageined. Urban cities like in Chennai, there are so much of start-stop kind of traffic and the emission would be pretty high and they can't imagine this kind of issues, but it is the reality here. Our vehicles should work according to our conditions and it is not difficult. Once you understand it, we can tweak it to suit the Indian conditions to make the vehicles suitable for this country. Many European car makers have taken data from us and had tweaked their vehicles according to Indian conditions have succeeded in capturing the imagination of Indian car buyers.

Do you also extend this service to home grown auto makers like Mahindra, Tata Motors etc?

These companies are our main target because they need the support more than anybody else. But today, we are respected by one and all, be it Indian auto makers are overseas players.

Is this a single product suit or...

We have several product suits and we have exhibitied only few of our products at our booth, where we thought we should be exhibiting here in areas such as emission, vehicle evaluation, safety and homologation, automotive electronics, automotive materials and calibration services. These are the areas that we have made lot of advancement and lot of technologies have been developed at our end, which is of use to the industry. Ultimately, it is all for the industrial use.

Further to that, some of the technologies which are matured in developed countries are not affordable here. Today, if you see, technologies such as ESP, TRU, ECU, ABS, active suspension and so many things, they are so frightfully expensive, which have been used in Tata Nano is impossible. We need technologies which are practical and affordable. Our products are very competitively priced. More than the competitive pricing, the price is not our motive. No doubt, our pricing will always be competitive. But, we provide so many products under one roof and knowing Indian conditions, we know India better than anybody else. So, we have the technology and wherewithal.

There is a paradigm shift in the Indian CV segment, with the new generation trucks, with advanced technologies, how relevant is ARAI products?

It is very relevant. These testing equipment are both for gasolene and petrol engines. In India, we have all kinds of fuels. In some cities, we find CNG as judiciary says CNG is important. They need tweek their power plant to be able to run on the same fuel. We have now several technologies in testing fuels as well. In fact, one of the technologies we have now recently developed is duel fuel, which can work both diesel as well as CNG. So, depending on the road load conditions, the diesel is displaced by the CNG. A combination of diesel fuel and CNG multiple ration work on the road, so you get all the advantages.

How many people work on this?

We are a team of 570 people, located essentially in Pune and our facilities are located in this city, but our team travels across the country and abroad. Right now, one of my team is working in China.

How strong are you in southern region?

Around 50 percent of our revenue comes from this area. In fact, Chennai is now 'The Detroit' of India. So many automotive companies have set up their bases in this region and that is why we have a coordination office in Chennai headed by a very senior person.  For an exhaustive report, visit http://automotivehorizon.sulekha.com/arai-displays-testin...