Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT Guwahati) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Assam Electronics Development Corporation Ltd (AMTRON), and RC Hobbytech Solutions Pvt. Ltd. on January 18 with a motive to work together on strengthening and expanding drone-based training, research and development, manufacturing for varied sectors such as agriculture, disaster management, wildlife conservation and health care, among others.
Speaking during the MoU signing event, Parameswar K Iyer, officiating director, IIT Guwahati, said: “The three organizations will work in tandem to actively engage in the research and development activities and the esteemed members of IIT Guwahati Drone Centre and Technology Incubation Hub will be integral parts in this endeavor for the greater good of the region.”
The scope of operations under the new collaboration will include:
Establishment of a commercial drone flying school at IIT Guwahati campus
The Commercial Drone Flying School will offer commercial drone flying fresher courses and other related advisory and consultancy services such as renewing their drone flying license, secure necessary commercial drone permits and help prepare students for drone flying tests.
Along with this, the school will also connect the students with organizations that need professional drone flyers.
Professional drone courses
Professional courses in the field of drones that will offer a wide range of services such as drone-based survey and mapping; geographic information systems courses; coding and AI-related courses, and other related courses will be a part of this objective. The classes for these courses will take place at IIT Guwahati campus.
R&D for development of prototypes
IIT Guwahati along with the industry partners will work on initially developing few prototype drones with an aim of getting it certified by the Quality Council of India (QCI) which will be used in activities including agriculture; spraying/ seeding and crop health monitoring, and vertical take-off and landing fixed wing drone for payload delivery, mapping and surveillance.
The institute will provide all the necessary machinery, software, related hardware and other utilities for the same.
Development of a disaster response management system
By utilizing the expertise of all stakeholders, a disaster response management system will be developed to address the identify and actuate any disaster in Assam. For the same, a team of students, professionals along with ready to fly surveillance and payload delivery drones will be setup for emergency response.
For the same, IIT Guwahati will develop drones to cater to the needs of the state to contain disasters, AMTRON will provide communication support, and RCH will provide necessary technical expertise in developing the drones and associated systems.
Along with this, a disaster response cell will be established at IIT Guwahati which will be operated by the drone helpline student volunteer team of the institute and AMTRON drone team.
Speaking about the objective of the tri-party agreement, Biswajit Dey, co- founder, EduRade said: “Our mission is to train youth of Northeast region in emerging technology so that they can upskill themselves and find relevance into the ever-growing technological landscape of current world. We are quite optimistic about this endeavour that our efforts will bear fruit and youths of this region will be able to take the self-employment route at large scale.”
