THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a move that may signal a pivotal change in the scientific data collection pertaining to terrestrial algae, College of Engineering Trivandrum (CET) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Catholicate College, Pathanamthitta, to scale up the research and development of Phycoscrapper, an app-controlled research instrument that can be used for the study of terrestrial algae. The MoU was signed by the heads of the institutions Jiji C V and Philipose Omman, recently. Suresh Babu V, Dean Research, CET; Dr Biji Jacob, HoD,ECE department and the team members attended the function. Earlier, the team from CET with relevant inputs from the team at Catholicate College had developed an initial prototype of the instrument for the Phycotechnology lab of the college.
The MoU will gear up the development of Phycoscrapper for research studies initiated by the lab and other similar research organisations. Phycoscrapper is a device that can be used for the study of terrestrial algae. It has a number of sensors to detect the growing conditions of the algae under study, including temperature, light intensity and humidity, and take photographs which will be controlled by the user using a mobile app.
The user’s phone can be connected to the system via bluetooth and WiFi. Using the app, commands can be sent to the system to read data from the sensors and alternatively, to take photographs. The mechanical part of the device consists of an extendable rod which can collect samples from a height of up to seven metres. The sample collected in the rod can be used for further analysis. The device can be used in the extensive study of other terrestrial organisms as well.
The device can be further improved for classifying the collected samples with the help of pictures. The developers intend on incorporating machine learning using the collected datasets which can be a great add-on to the prototype. The project was led by Rajeev Rajan of CET, Binoy T Thomas and Dr Thomas V P of Catholicate College and supported by a team of BTech students of CET Ananya Ayasi, Parvathy S Varma, Jacob Joshy, Aswin Manoj, Surabhi S, Stephin Thomas and Merin Ann Ninan of Catholicate College , Pathanamthitta.