India’s Early Journey Into Autonomous Systems ft. Ritukar Vijay
EPISODE NOTES
🎯 Long before autonomous vehicles became a buzzword In 2009–10, when robotics in India was almost non-existent, Ritukar Vijay found himself working on something most engineers could only read about. Straight out of college, he was building autonomous software for unmanned battle tanks, at a time when even self-driving cars felt like science fiction. Here’s what shaped that journey: 🔺 Working on unmanned ground vehicles for defence, years ahead of the market 🔺 Early access to 3D LiDARs among the first in the APAC region 🔺 Learning from DARPA Grand Challenge research while building real systems 🔺 Burning fingers early, and gaining real-world exposure fast Before autonomy became a product category, it was pure curiosity, experimentation, and hands-on learning. Deep tech isn’t born i…