Students from IIT Kharagpur are working on an effective and unique project entitled Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (UAV). The students have designed this vehicle as a ROBOT which is very much brilliant more than drones and it has the potential in performing consigned tasks beneath water like exploring for fragments of an aircraft crashed in a deep ocean.

Formerly, the students at Robotics Centre have advanced and developed ‘Kraken 3.0’, which is a prototype UAV that has the ability to move more than a depth of 10 metres in a puddle of water or just like a submarine. They have pre-programmed the vehicle in such a way that it can accomplish precisely assigned tasks like under-water examining, detecting lost wreckage and gathering all those fragments.

Abhay Kumar, who is directing and guiding this team of students, told PTI that, it can also be used for undertaking repairs for the exterior hull of a ship.

IIT Students Develops Underwater ROBOT :

The UAV vehicle just looks like an armed warrior and it is designed with powerful robust censors and cameras to discover and identify its environs.  The Under-water Robot is 1.3-metre-long designed using Six- thruster model that can easily revolve on its own almost in five different directions. UAV is developed as an alternative for drones, because drones are unable to use under water. Even, they are not water-resistant as the wireless technology embedded inside it doesn’t support to move beneath water.

This robot of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle has an inbuilt efficacious on-board computer. Even they are programmed with latest technology in order to manage problematic situations and emergencies on their own in an effective manner.

Intelligent Underwater Robot built by IIT Students :

A Fourth-year student of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture department said that, “the Robot is programmed very efficiently so that, it can face difficult hurdles under water and take proper decisions according to the emergency. It may face obstacles under the water and so it is programmed how to act in case of an emergency,”

UAVs were assigned to trace the debris under the sea at the time of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which went missing last year in the Indian Ocean, UAVs were assigned to locate the debris inside the sea.

Few years ago, the first and utmost indigenous UAV was developed by some of the students at IIT in India. Many other institutes took a step forward for developing such prototypes. Even then, real-time applications are still under process.

All the students who were part of this project at the Centre of Robotics belongs to various departments like Computer Science, Electronics, Ocean Engineering, Science and Physics. They were guided by Professor C S Kumar of the Mechanical Engineering Department.

These team members acquire much knowledge regarding the inventions through this Centre of Robotics than they learn in the classroom. Now, the students are planning to participate in the International AUVSI RoboSub Competition that is going to be held at California in July. The Competition is meant for large industries and students to exhibit their skills and talent in underwater Robotics.

Currently, they are working at the hydrodynamics lab for active testing in order to improve a rugged autonomous vehicle. The main intention of the team is to commercialise the autonomous vehicle as an educational tool.  Even they are also interested in joining and get connected with top entrepreneurs in the field for partnerships.