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India is all set to test its ‘‘Autonomous Underwater Vehicle-150’’ off the Chennai coast next month, The Times of India reports.
Developed by the Durgapur-based Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), a unit of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the unmanned vehicle has immense civilian and military potential.
‘‘AUV-150 will be tested for sea-floor mapping and monitoring of environmental parameters, such as current, temperature, depth and salinity,’’ CMERI director Gautam Biswas told TOI.
‘‘Once the technology is proven, it will be customised for military applications like mine counter-measures, coastal monitoring and reconnaissance. It will also be very useful in cable and pipeline surveys.’’
The project was sponsored by the ministry of earth sciences and had technical assistance from IIT-Kharagpur.
‘‘A full-scale prototype was put to freshwater test in Idukki dam in Kerala recently.
All navigational parameters functioned satisfactorily,’’ said S N Shome, group head for robotics and automation at CMERI under whose supervision the AUV took shape.
The prototype weighs 490 kg, is 4.8 metres long and has a diameter of just 50 cm.
It packs a wide array of gadgets into its slender frame - depth sensor, altimeter, sonar and GPS and payload sensors - apart from a hybrid communication system that uses radio waves while on the surface and acoustic underwater.
The remote controlled vehicle uses a Lithium polymer battery and can operate up to depths of 150 metres at speeds of 2-4 knots, sources say.
The AUV will leapfrog India to a select group of nations, like the US, Australia, Germany, Russia, Korea and Japan, which are vigorously pursuing autonomous underwater technology and underwater robotics.
“The institute had been working on the project since 2003, but with the stress being on indigenization, it was bound to be time consuming,’’ said S Nandy, a scientist associated with the project.
