India Goes Upscale on Auto R&D

Rob Spiegel

November 29, 2011

2 Min Read
India Goes Upscale on Auto R&D

The government of India has decided to boost the quality of its automotive industry. With an eye toward creating cars worthy of export, the government of India has launched the National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP). The project was funded by the government and a consortium that includes several of India's automakers.

NATRiP will offer state-of-the-art auto research-and-development, testing, and validation for automotive design and development. "Before NATRiP, the testing capability in India's automotive industry was fractured," Craig Lukomski, engineering manager for test systems at Moog Inc., one of the vendors participating in NATRiP, told Design News. "Each auto maker did its own R&D and testing."

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Lukomski noted that the quality of R&D and testing hasn't been high at the individual companies. Since R&D and testing needs to operate at a high level to create quality vehicles, NATRiP was launched to improve these capabilities for the entire Indian auto industry. "They're trying to provide an infrastructure to improve the quality for the whole industry," he said. "The center will be fully staffed so car makers can bring their products and test specifications."

NATRiP provides a wide spectrum of test capabilities. "There are tests for safety and a portion of testing for durability or fatigue. There's also a portion that provides grounds." The center also includes road simulation to test for squeak and rattle and other noises.

NATRiP has opened three facilities in different areas of India. Moog provides test services at all three sites. "We were contracted in February to supply equipment that will allow NATRiP to test full vehicles, systems, and components. We will utilize a four-post road simulator that tests the entire vehicle in road simulation. It tests the motion of the vehicle over the road."

Moog also provides a multi-axis shaker table. "This allows us to put systems -- as opposed to a whole vehicle -- on it and provide the same road-induced vibration testing." The systems that are tested include engine mounts, seating assemblies, and cooling systems. "The final part is the universal test bench. That allows us to test components such as a control arm or coil spring."

NATRiP was set up as a two-year project. It's not clear whether NATRiP will continue past the two-year mark. The overall goal is to help India's auto industry improve vehicle quality and thus give the country a shot at auto exports. "They created NATRiP to make market-leading products," Lukomski told us.

About the Author

Rob Spiegel

Rob Spiegel serves as a senior editor for Design News. He started with Design News in 2002 as a freelancer covering sustainability issues, including the transistion in electronic components to RoHS compliance. Rob was hired by Design News as senior editor in 2011 to cover automation, manufacturing, 3D printing, robotics, AI, and more.

Prior to his work with Design News, Rob worked as a senior editor for Electronic News and Ecommerce Business. He served as contributing editolr to Automation World for eight years, and he has contributed to Supply Chain Management Review, Logistics Management, Ecommerce Times, and many other trade publications. He is the author of six books on small business and internet commerce, inclluding Net Strategy: Charting the Digital Course for Your Company's Growth.

He has been published in magazines that range from Rolling Stone to True Confessions.

Rob has won a number of awards for his technolloghy coverage, including a Maggy Award for a Design News article on the Jeep Cherokee hacking, and a Launch Team award for Ecommerce Business. Rob has also won awards for his leadership postions in the American Marketing Association and SouthWest Writers.

Before covering technology, Rob spent 10 years as publisher and owner of Chile Pepper Magazine, a national consumer food publication. He has published hundreds of poems and scores of short stories in national publications.

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