KARACHI: Engineers at NED University have successfully completed the test run of Pakistan’s first fully autonomous car, marking a significant advancement in the country’s AI-driven transportation research.
The AI-powered vehicle was seen driving smoothly on the internal roads of NED University, surprising onlookers with its capabilities.
Work on the project began a year ago at the university’s National Center for Artificial Intelligence (NCAI) within the Department of Computer and Information Systems.
The driverless system has been integrated into an imported electric vehicle from China, which has been equipped with AI algorithms, robotics, mapping systems, sensors, and vision technology.
Dr. Muhammad Khurram, the project lead and Director of NCAI, told med during the test drive that the team had been working on the project for the past year and had now brought it to a mature, functional stage.
He added that the car is currently undergoing road trials, and the team has implemented radar technology and computer vision to enhance its performance.
“We have moved beyond steering control and are now working on object detection, lane recognition, speed-limit detection, and traffic signal recognition,” Dr. Khurram said. “With these upgrades, the car will soon achieve full autonomous driving capability.”
For testing purposes, the vehicle’s speed has been programmed between 15 and 20 km/h. The autonomous system is capable of judging turns and detecting oncoming traffic.
Team member Inzamam Khan highlighted that this vehicle is among the few in the world being tested in an uncontrolled urban environment, adding that their sensor technology is highly robust.
The project was initiated during the tenure of former Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Sarosh Hashmat Lodi and reached a major milestone shortly after the appointment of current Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Tufail Ahmed.
