Ericsson has announced an agreement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) System Design and Management (SDM) program to jointly create innovative solutions for Ericsson’s Autonomous Driving – Predictive Mobility project.

The collaboration is a result of significant student interest expressed via a vote at MIT SDM’s annual SDM Project Forum and Core Technology Showcase, held in January at the MIT Media Lab, said a statement from the company.  

Ericsson and MIT SDM will also work together to explore additional ways to work closely together in the future, it said.

Ericsson’s Autonomous Driving project takes an innovative software approach to combining data and analytics. It enables the company to better understand context, driver profiles and network awareness in support of app delivery to the autonomous car, including intelligent media streaming. One of the project’s many challenges is how to securely capture the driver’s identity to better understand preferences and behaviour. The MIT SDM project team will work with Ericsson to define and design this “identity” module, it added.

The 2016 SDM Core Technology Showcase attracted about 300 SDM students and faculty, as well as representatives from companies that presented 28 projects for students to judge and vote on for further development. SDM fellows, who will earn a master’s in engineering and management from MIT upon graduating, ranked Ericsson’s among the top two projects to pursue and deliver in May. This collaboration establishes an innovation-based relationship with the prestigious research university, said the statement.

Mike Kaul, vice president, technology, business unit support solution at Ericsson, said: “We are eager to team with MIT to push the boundaries of autonomous car innovation.”

“MIT’s SDM program combines multiple academic disciplines, including engineering, management and systems thinking, for top-tier mid-career professionals with several years of work experience who want to innovate and lead. Their participation will offer fresh insight, and creative perspective to Ericsson’s important Autonomous Driving project,” he added.

SDM, the MIT master’s program in engineering and management, was created in 1996 in response to industry’s need to develop future generations of leaders. Offered jointly by MIT’s School of Engineering and the MIT Sloan School of Management, SDM is one of the world’s first graduate programs to integrate engineering, management, and systems thinking with leadership and innovation.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT, with five schools and one college that contain a total of 32 departments, is often cited as among the world's top universities. – TradeArabia News Service