ePlane Company partners NVIDIA to build India's first electric air taxi

IIT Madras-incubated startup to use NVIDIA Omniverse and IGX platforms to build a digital twin of its e200x aircraft, accelerating simulation, autonomy testing and DGCA certification

The ePlane Company, a homegrown developer of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, on Thursday said it has collaborated with Nvidia to build India’s first electric air taxi, the e200x.

 

The collaboration does not involve a financial component and is based on knowledge exchange.

 

Under the partnership, ePlane will use Nvidia Omniverse libraries to create a digital twin of the e200x aircraft. The virtual replica will be used to validate flight physics, autonomy algorithms, sensor fusion and mission scenarios that are difficult and expensive to test physically.

 

The company will also deploy the Nvidia IGX platform as the onboard computing system to host critical applications, it said in a statement.

 

Given that physical testing under extreme weather, sensor failures or collision scenarios can be costly and risky, the digital twin will allow the aircraft to fly millions of kilometres virtually. This will help train algorithms on complex real-world scenarios before the aircraft undertakes actual flights.

 

Satya Chakravarthy, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ePlane, said the collaboration strengthens the company’s aerospace ambitions. “We are not just building an aircraft; we are building an ecosystem. Collaborating with Nvidia allows us to blur the line between the digital and the physical. By validating our flight operations suite in Nvidia Omniverse, we are effectively pushing the limits of the aircraft thousands of times in simulation so that we never have to in reality,” he said.

 

Prototype ready, certification next

 

Sharing an update with Business Standard, Bakthakolahalan Shyamsundar, Principal Engineer – Avionics Systems and Autonomy, said the first prototype has already been built.

 

“We are going to start ground testing in a couple of months. We will be building two more prototypes and put our aircraft through what’s called certification with DGCA. We have a few members of DGCA working with us in Chennai,” he said.

 

The IIT Madras-incubated startup aims to address mobility constraints in congested cities. Once testing and certification are completed, it plans to begin operations in metropolitan cities such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and Chennai.

 

Separately, Nvidia and AI Grants India, an AI-focused non-profit organisation, recently announced a collaboration under NVIDIA’s Inception programme to support early-stage companies in India.

 

The initiative aims to support up to 500 new AI startups over the next 12 months by providing access to advanced AI tools, models and technical training to help them move from concept to product faster.