The third prototype of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Matsya 3.0 was unveiled by the team of students and faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay on Tuesday. The AUV has been developed by a 30-member team from the institute, which has worked on it since 2011.
The AUV in its third edition and has added a geo locator. That means it can tell the vehicle's location by using its sensors. "The total cost of the AUV is Rs22 lakh. The previous edition was made at almost half the cost. The cost of the new sensors is approximately Rs12 lakh," said Mihir Gupta, team leader, AUV-IIT-B. The maximum depth that the vehicle can reach has increased from 40-feet to 150-feet.
The vehicle will represent IIT-B at the International RoboSub competition at San Diego, between July 28 and August 3, 2014. The competition entails the development of an unmanned autonomous underwater vehicle by implementing concepts from different streams of engineering namely mechanical, electrical, computer science, aerospace and material sciences. The vehicle can localise itself in an underwater environment and perform real life navy-based task.
Explaining what can be expected from the product, Gupta said, "Over the past three years, the team has followed an iterative design process. Experience at an international level has enabled and driven us to achieve excellence in each subdivision of the AUV. We focus on extensive R&D and most components are produced ingeniously and in-house. Matsya 3.0, has been designed keeping in mind the product level features and finish."
According to the team, the AUV can be commercially used for defense purposes of detection and surveillance, underwater power lines, marine research, shipwreck and airplane debris reconnaissance. "The USA has deployed a similar AUVs in the Indian Ocean for the search of the missing Malaysian jet MH370," said Gupta.
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