IIT-Mandi Develops Underwater Robotic Vehicle That Can Gather Cyclone Data

Mandi: IIT-Mandi in collaboration with IIT-Palakkad built a high-end marine vehicle that will help gather vital information about cyclones through below sea dynamics. With the help of this vehicle, sea cyclones can be detected in advance based on the data obtained.

However, this vehicle will not give any direct information, warning or alert about the cyclone. Only future activities can be assessed based on the data received through it.

Assistant professor of IIT Mandi, Jagdish said, 'We worked with marine robots, surface vehicles and underwater vehicles. We have prepared a vehicle and named it Hybrid Propulsion Underwater Robotic Vehicle, which looks like a fish. This is one-of-its-kind vehicle in India. We will try to understand the parameters of the sea through this robot underwater vehicle."

Giving details of its features, he said it can swim in the water like a fish. Its speed can be increased further by installing a propeller. Burns engine mechanism has been used in it. It can go to great depths in the sea. Many IITs are also doing research on such systems. This project is being made in collaboration with Professor Shantu Kumar Mohan of IIT-Palakkad, he said and added this project has been completely made under Make in India.

Professor Jagdish said the Hybrid Propulsion Underwater Robotic Vehicle can go to a depth of 100 meters in the sea. With its help, parameters like temperature, and salinity can be checked and by studying this data, information about the cyclone can be found.

"This vehicle can stay underwater for four to five hours, but more research is still going on. Efforts are on to enhance its capability, so that it can go to the maximum depth of the sea and keep sending all the data by staying underwater for at least a week. In this way, it can provide vital information about the cyclone," he added.