BENGALURU: Twenty-year-old Shravan Poovaiah’s visit to his native Ammathi in Virajpet last year led him to design a machine which would help reduce his mother’s burden of not just monitoring several workers at their coffee estate on her own, but also receive alerts on wild animal movements and forest fires. Shravan, an engineering student studying BE (Mechanical) at National Institute of Engineering in Mysuru, comes from a family of farmers and designed the robot to help the community at large.
An unmanned ground vehicle, the size of a college bag, it sports four wheels to move around as well as a basic handset with a SIM and camera to record videos. Explaining how it works, Shravan said the prototype of the robot has a camera which can record all activities across the farm. The robot is designed to rotate 360 degrees to capture videos, and its owner can dial into the handset from anywhere in the world to connect to the robot.
Once connected, the owner can use the dial pad (numbers 2, 8, 4 and 6) to control the movement of the vehicle in four directions.“This is similar to games played on cell phones. The equipment hardly weighs 1kg and is very compact,” he said.
The robot prototype is designed in such a way it can move on any quality of surface. It is also suited to operate under any weather condition, including rains. It runs on solar power batteries.
“It is designed in a such a way that users can monitor the video recordings on their phones. The speed of the robot prototype is adjusted in such a way that recording can be watched with more clarity,’’ he said.
The cost of the equipment is Rs 3,000. Shravan, who worked on the prototype for six months, said it can also be used to check for wild animal movements and fires within the property and keep a track od workers.
Shravan recently demonstrated his prototype on National Science Day (February 28) at his college. His work, which was backed by his Physics professor Dr M V Deepa Urs, was met with applause.
Furthermore, former Director of the Karnataka State Open University, Prof B S Vishwanath, also assured Shravan to assist him further with the project.