A remote-controlled submersible capable of sending real-time videos of ships and other underwater structures to help with their maintenance was handed over to the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), a DRDO facility, here on Friday.
The remotely operated vehicle (ROV) named Eyerovtuna was developed by EyeROV Technologies, a company incubated at the Maker Village in Kochi, the country’s largest hardware incubator. It landed the first order from the NPOL.
KSUM support
The development of EyeROV was largely supported by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) through various schemes. NPOL Director S. Kedarnath Shenoy received the ROV from Saji Gopinath, CEO of Kerala Startup Mission. The drone will be used by NPOL for research and development activities. Mr. Shenoy said the underwater vehicle was co-developed by NPOL to meet their specifications. “Besides, we firmly believe that it would also energise the start-up ecosystem in this place,” he said.
The robotic vehicle, developed by Johns T. Mathai and Kannappa Palaniappan P., can be navigated up to a depth of 50 metres to take real-time HD video images to examine ship hulls or undersea cables or bridge moorings, eliminating the need for costlier and riskier manual inspection by divers. Prasad Balakrishnan Nair, CEO, Maker Village, and senior officers from Cochin Shipyard Limited, Cochin Port Trust, KSEB, Fire and Rescue Services Department and KSIDC attended the event
EyeROV, which was tested on India’s first solar ferry in Vaikom, offers high manoeuvring capability at low cost and can be put to uses ranging from inspections of ship hulls, ports, dams and nuclear power plants, to search and rescue, naval mine detection and ocean studies, said a media release here.
Currently 60 hardware companies from across the country working on cutting edge technologies are incubating from the 30,000 sqft area of Maker Village.
