The Hindu : Robots to clear landmines?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 04, 2003

National

National

Robots to clear landmines?

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR MAY 3. We may soon find robots clearing the landmines that often claim many lives of defence personnel, or see them working in the disaster-struck areas to save human lives. Still miniaturised robots may be injected into the human bloodstream to relay information about causes of certain diseases or conditions of the patients.

Most of it is still in the conceptual stage but some of it might become a reality in a couple of years at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT) taking shape on the outskirts of Gujarat's capital city of Gandhinagar.

``We are not into developing components but a system where the robots will do most of the hazardous spadework. We do not talk about defence but this is one sector that is expected to derive maximum benefits out of the "Cooperative Robotics'' research programme at the DA-IICT,'' said Arvind Kudchadker, director of the institute which has already been granted deemed university status by the Gujarat Government.

The institute has already developed "lego robots'' that move on wheels and communicate with each other. "The wonder of it is that these have been developed by our first-year students of the undergraduate course of B. Tech. in Information and Communication Technology,'' said Prof. Kudchadker.

He believed that in about two years the robots would be ready to perform the difficult tasks making life easy for human beings.

By miniaturising the robots and removing their wheels, these robots could be converted into "sensor network'' for a wide range of applications, but the institute's main focus was on "precision farming.''

The satellite images of crops could have some "ambiguity but the sensor network give exact and localised information and use this to improve efficiency, productivity and quality of agricultural farming,'' said Prabhat Ranjan of the Institute's research wing working on the co-operative robotics.

At the moment, the institute was trying to implement moisture and sap flow rate sensing to automate drip irrigation and develop fruit growth and maturity sensing device to get a better grip on the quality of fruits and their harvesting.

The institute is introducing a master's course in IT (Agriculture) and inter-acting closely with the Reliance Agro-Initiative, Jamnagar, to test and develop these technologies, he said.

Pointing out that the "sensor network'' technology could also be used in many other applications such as animal health monitoring, seismic activity and such others, he said the institute was planning to use these technologies to improve the quality of life in the rural areas.

By collecting information about human health, animal health and water quality through the sensor network in specific geographical locations, it would correlate information to take preventive actions.

As a first step in this direction, the first batch of 240 students of the institute would spend six weeks of summer vacation from May 5 in the tribal villages of Tezgadh in Vadodara district.

The "world class'' institute which was given the go-ahead by the State Government only in June 2000, started its first academic year in 2001 and is claimed to be the only one of its kind after Japan to have combined information and communication in its curricula.

``In future, we are hoping to use nano-technology to miniaturise the sensor nodes further to develop "nano-robots,'' Prof. Pradhan said. These would be so small that it could go inside the human body through the bloodstream and accurately perform many tasks not possible otherwise. The institute is confident that its bio-informatics along with information technology in biological sciences and close interaction with the genetics research group at the Reliance Life Sciences Complex would help it achieve its dream soon.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National