BENGALURU: A student of CMR National PU College, has developed a concept and a miniature prototype of a solar powered road cleaner that was appreciated at a competition at IIT-Kanpur.
The ‘EcoSweep’, as it’s called is a compact eco-friendly road cleaning machine, which aims to keep Indian roads clean while also not affecting the air quality, says Pranay K K V, who came up with the idea.
The machine needs to be operated by one person and is also equipped with a GPS that will act as an assistant during the cleaning process. It is equipped with four rotatory sweepers that channels the dust to the center of the vehicle where the debris is collected by a suction unit. The machine can clean up to 35kms of road.
Besides solar energy, it can also run on batteries. Computers on board the vehicle can also dynamically change the course to adjust to the traffic and battery range requirements.
The idea was developed for a competition at IIT Kanpur called the Techkriti Open School Championship that took place last year, where Pranay competed against 100 other finalists from across the country. He ultimately was the winner.
“The entire criteria was for us to come up with the best solution for an issue related to the environment and I thought a solar cleaner would be a good idea,” Pranay says. He also presented his idea at the The Amateur Scientist 2016 competition.
The dust deposits can be recycled and made into bricks to be used in construction, adds Pranay. He also talked about a concept of having power stations where vehicles can be recharged. A number of machines can also be interconnected and work collectively.
“An army of such green machines can clean the roads more effectively than the conventional diesel powered RCMs. These don’t cause any air pollution but reduce the air particles that cause air pollution,” he adds.
For his prototype Pranay made a 1:8 scaled model to give people a rough idea on how the machine will look in real life. He plans to build the real machine soon.