Mumbai: From robots that can port luggage to monitor crop health, the two-day e-yantra symposium at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) was witness to the sharing of innovative technological ideas at its e-yantra symposium held on the campus on Friday.
The symposium hosted a total of 16 projects. The finalists were selected from regional finals held in Mumbai, Delhi, Coimbatore, Pune and Bengaluru.
One of these was Pravas Sarthi, a kiosk designed by students of VES Institute of Technology, Chembur, which helps people use airport facilities in their mother tongue. Programmed with four languages, the kiosk can take both text and voice input. “This can help people access various facilities of the airport like lounges, restaurants and get flight details in a language of their choice. It can also pick up accents and wrong pronunciations to get the right results,” says Aneesh Gunda, a student at the institute who was involved in the project. The kiosk also comes with a 3-D map that helps with navigation within the airport.
Another robot, which is a hybrid of a drone and quadcopter, a helicopter with four rotors,helps with monitoring crop health. The robot sends photos of the crops and helps identify crop diseases. “Most of the crop diseases are identified at a later stage, which may lead to losing the complete harvest. Our robot flies over the field and can transmit up to 180 images for every two minutes,” says Nilesh Sabe, a student of Prof. Ram Meghe College of Engineering & Management, Amravati, who developed the robot.
A robot that can do way with porters at railway stations has been built by a team from Mar Ephraem College of Engineering & Technology, Tamil Nadu. The robot can transport luggage in a protective enclosure that travels along straight lines in a railway station. “We have an RFID system, which can be put on railway tickets to make sure no unauthorised person can access the luggage,” says Ananthu Anil Kumar, one of the students involved in the project. The robot has also been programmed to go to platforms where new trains arrive.
Many other projects including robots that can dredge up drains, make cost-effective paper bags and help victims during a building collapse were exhibited during the symposium.
“The goal is to share projects and brainstorm new ideas for improving pedagogy and quality of Bachelor of Engineering projects. This event ensures a sustainable use of Robotics labs set up through eLSI," said Prof. Kavi Arya, principal investigator, e-Yantra project.
The selected teams will go through summer internships at the institute. The projects were selected from 330 submissions from colleges across India and were created in robotic labs set up in the respective colleges using funds from the Ministry of Human Resources & Development through an IIT-B initiative called e-yantra Lab Setup Initiative (eLSI).
The final results will be declared on Saturday.
