E-Paper
‘IIT-K’s counter drone useful in internal security’
LUCKNOW: The internal combustion (IC) engine powered drone designed and developed by a team of faculty and students of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
LUCKNOW: The internal combustion (IC) engine powered drone designed and developed by a team of faculty and students of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur has now found a new role beyond a typical run-of-the-mill drone.
Praising this high endurance drone, union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank tweeted, “Certainly this innovation is useful in natural disasters and internal security of the country.”
Developed by Dr Abhishek and Dr Mangal Kothari and his team, this ultra-modern strong unmanned drone can be used for a wide range of applications ranging from surveillance, crown monitoring, crowd control, delivery of emergency supplies, precision agriculture, hostage situations, chemical and nuclear agent detection, real estate etc.
The work has impressed Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank who recently shared it on facebook and twitter.
“While there are several electronic methods available to counter a drone such as radio frequency jammers and GPS signal jammers etc, all these methods have limited range and do not guarantee that the rogue drone is effectively neutralized. So, IIT Kanpur team has now developed a system that is capable of physically capturing a rouge drone,” said Dr Abhishek.
“When the drone tracking system finds out the flight path of rogue drone, the autonomous counter drone system consisting of unmanned helicopter with drone catching net is deployed along the flight path to intercept the drone and catch it in the net deployed for the purpose as shown in the image,” said Dr Mangal Kothari.
The current system could capture drones of upto 3.5 to 4 kg and patrol the sensitive zone for 3 hours continuously. Another system with ability to tackle up to 10 kg drone was under development. This was expected to be useful for law enforcement as well as border forces to check any unwanted drone activity, the duo said.
This was the first of its kind research work done in India by an institute, they said.
