Micelio partners with ARAI, MHI to set up Digital Twin centres to strengthen EV ecosystem

Electric Vehicle (EV) network platform Micelio Mobility has partnered with the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) and the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) to set up what they called the Digital Twin Centres for Emerging Automotive Systems. These centres, which will help in cutting costs and boosting efficiency while developing indigenous automotive solutions, will be open to startups, MSMEs, researchers and academia.

A digital twin technology is a digital representation of a physical product that makes it cost-effective and time-saving for developers to test and run simulations for their products.

The centre's hub will be set up in Pune, while the other two centres in Bengaluru and Guwahati will act as spokes, said ARAI Director Dr Reji Mathai. "The common engineering facility that we are planning will help small players in the EV sector with their evaluations and basic studies," he said.

At these centres, companies will be able to run simulations using digital twins and build a fault case library, which can be dynamically updated and referred to by startups and MSMEs while testing their products.

The Rs 42-crore investment will make component-level simulation possible thus eliminating the need to wait for the entire product to be ready before running tests and thereby saving money and time.

The Bengaluru centre will focus on providing support to the startup ecosystem, while the Pune centre will look focus on the traditional auto manufacturers. The third centre in the capital city of Assam will be stationed at the Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati campus focusing on providing experiential learning to its students.

"While we have set a target of March 2023 to get these centres running, we expect two centres to be operative latest by mid-2023 in Pune and Bengaluru," said Shreyas Shibulal, Founder & Director, Micelio Mobility.