The Indian Railways has extended the memorandum of understanding signed with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur for encouraging a state of the art collaborative research for modernisation of railway infrastructure and efficient utilisation of its scientific assets through the centre for railway research (CRR).

The MoU was signed between Alka Arora Misra, principal executive director (T&MPP), ministry of railways and Prof AR Harish, dean, R&D, IIT-Kanpur in the presence of chairman and CEO, Railway Board, Vinod Kumar Yadav and IIT- Kanpur director Prof Abhay Karandikar.

Prof Abhay Karandikar spoke on the importance of this collaboration in the context of modernisation of Indian Railways for the development of cutting edge technologies in electronics, sensor networks, power electronics and electrical safety.

He also spoke on related research and development activities being carried out at IIT-Kanpur in the domain areas of relevance to Indian Railways.

The MoU would facilitate research in the core areas of electrical locomotive, locomotive control and communication systems, traction installation, condition-based monitoring, train and track safety using signal processing, power and vehicle control electronics, driver interface systems, train level sensor networks and IoT, electrical safety, network control and staff training in related technical areas through the CRR at IIT-Kanpur, Prof Karandikar said.

 

Currently, CRR, which has its administrative unit in the department of electrical engineering in IIT-Kanpur, has been assigned the broad research domain of loco research and propulsion technologies, traction installation/OHE and associated electronics.