CHENNAI: A drone that can be used during times of disasters, a cost-effective device to clean manholes and a robot that detects possible flaws in rail-road tracks are among the 50 exhibits at the Centre For Innovation (CFI)’s Open House organised by Indian Institute of Technology-Madras’ on Sunday.
An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) fitted with cameras, is coupled with artificial intelligence that can detect people from a height of 30 m.
“The device can be used to autonomously detect people during times of natural calamities, in order to replace human surveillance. It can also differentiate people in distress by reading their body language,” said Ayush Maniar, one of the three-member team that worked on the project.
The students also displayed SOS devices that can alert officials and relatives about the last available GPS co-ordinates when a person is in danger. “The device can easily be implanted into a toy and hung from somewhere. When it is pulled twice, it will automatically send the GPS co-ordinates to the persons concerned,” said S Raghav Vaidyanathan, the student executive head of CFI.
While similar devices are already available globally, they cost nearly 10 times as much and are unavailable in India, he said. “The device can be made available for a cost of `100-150 when mass produced,” he claimed.
Some of the exhibits were also designed for the army. Sensors that can be fitted on gloves were designed to read hand signals that are meant to be relayed when verbal communication is not possible.“When one person signals through hand gestures, the information can be transmitted to the entire team,” said Raghav Vaidyanathan.
Artemis - an autonomous bot that detects and maps railroads to search for possible cracks, wear and tear for the maintenance and monitoring of railroads, a hand-held spectrometer, digital barometer for oxygen cylinders and electric bevel gear bicycle, were among the other exhibits.
CFI, the student-run facility to encourage engineers to apply knowledge from their academic pursuits to ‘innovate’ and propose solutions to real-world problems, hosted the exhibition, for students to network with potential mentors and facilitators in technology and entrepreneurship. It aims to promote informal learning and foster innovation and invention in technology, with a focus on technologies aimed at contributing positively to the environment and to society.
Speaking about the importance of the Open House, MS Sivakumar, Dean (Students), IIT-M, said, “CFI is a place where our students find their idea translating into a real product. Students explain what they did, not just by words but by displaying their creation in action.”
An institute press release said multiple projects in CFI have been patented and also recognised at the national and international levels with achievements such as the GYTI award, James Dyson Award, bagging the fifth and sixth places at the Defense Expo 2018, first runner up position in the Smart India Hackathon and Employees’ Choice Award at the Accenture Innovation Challenge. CFI was also invited to Rashtrapati Bhavan, for the President’s Festival of Innovation.