Students develop drone that can carry lifebuoys

Kochi: The images of stranded people waiting for rescue teams during the Kerala floods 2018 have triggered students of Toc H Institute of Science and Technology, Arakunnam, to build a drone that can detect and equip stranded people with some support to survive until a full rescue is done. The students developed a real-time product called ‘AIRA MK.5’, a cost-effective aerial robot that can provide quick safety equipment like lifebuoys for the needy.
“We came up with the idea of an unmanned aerial vehicle that is capable of tracking stranded people’s location and providing them with lifebuoys, thereby increasing their chances of survival by a major percentage.Computer vision enables AIRA to locate such people and transmits the location to our system. AIRA can drop a buoy at the location where the human presence was detected. This process is designed to be autonomous but can also be executed manually,” said Anfil Shajo, who along with Justin Paul Cherian and Rizwan M Shiraz built the drone, which can carry the buoy and drop it or even hand it over to the needy.
They are students of robotics & automation under the department of electronics, Toc H.
“Our product was a prototype during the rescue of the trekker at Palakkad. If our drone had been ready, we could have reached out to that man as choppers weren’t able to reach that point and there are no drones that can carry such buoys or anything of around 5kg,” said Shajo.
The product is ready to use and the team believes it is a cost-effective one. As AIRA makes its appearance in various competitions, it is bringing the team laurels and lots of awards.