Plans include a techno park close to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai, where defence scientists will work with students on the products.
Students with creative ideas need no longer fear they are not going to be taken seriously. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is all out to tap their innovative ideas. Plans include a techno park close to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai, where defence scientists will work with students on the products.
The move follows the success of Netra, the unmanned aerial vehicle. The prototype for Netra was developed by students of the IIT, Bombay. Netra is now at the mass production stage.
S Sundaresh, Chief Controller, (R&D), Armament and Combat Engineering, DRDO gave the details of the new project. He was speaking on the sidelines of the golden jubilee celebration of the Research & Development Establishment (Engineers) — R&DE (E), Pune.
Sundaresh said that 100 scientists will work with students and academicians to identify innovative ideas. The DRDO will be funding the products, which can be used for defence purposes.
“We will set up a techno park close to IIT in Chennai. About 100 defence scientists from DRDO and sister institutes will work closely with students. Once the idea is accepted on merit, scientists, students and academicians will work as a group similar to that of a small scale industry, which would be responsible for developing the innovative product,” he said.
Sundaresh said scientists working on such projects would be given the choice to continue with the group at the incubation centre or return to the defence organisation. “If the idea of the new product is accepted, the entire project will be funded by the DRDO. The success of Netra, which was an innovative idea from IIT students, has motivated us to roll out the project,” he said.
Speaking with DNA, Alok Mukherjee,, scientist from R&DE (E), Pune who headed the Netra project, said youngsters have very good ideas that can be utilised by giving them guidance. “A symposium was held in Pune in 2008, where a group of young IITians from Idea Forge Technology Pvt Ltd, operating out of the incubation centre in IIT Bombay came up with the prototype of the UAV. This caught our interest and we took up the project and came up with Netra,” he said.
Mukherjee said the DRDO capability of identifying an idea and converting into product that meets the defence parameters would benefit innovative students immensely.
For anti-terrorist and CI ops
Netra is a fully autonomous UAV designed for anti-terrorist and counter insurgency (CI) operations. The operator simply selects the waypoints from a graphical interface showing the map of the area and specifies the heights at these positions with command to either hover or traverse through them.
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