The final year Electronics and Communication students of Kidangoor Engineering College created a real time controllable self-reconfigurable robot, which can be operated on land as well as in water. Monu V Cherian, Raj Philip, Lizjo John and Ajith G under the guidance of Deepak V K who is the lecturer in charge of Electronics and Communication department of the college came up with this fabulous robot project which works fully under the control of a computer while comparing with other existing robots this model has a great lot of novelty and differences.
One of the unique characters of this robot is that it can be operated both in water and on land. Robots with this particular specialty have not been created in any other countries before. According to the changes happening in environment and circumstances this robot can make changes in its structure and thus the name self-reconfigurable suits to it. It uses wheels to move on land but when it touches water it changes its structure volunteerly, in such a way that it is suitable to be in water. This sort of behavior happening to a robot is a new thing in the history of ‘amphibious robotics’.
These robots can take water and put off fire using pumps and water reservoirs attached to it by entering places vulnerable in catching fire and in tunnels where humans cannot reach. The robot can hold, collect and defend its obstacles using its hands and fingers. This has a special eye to take the video pictures of places where humans cannot pass through and copy them to the computer that operates it. Communication is possible in this robot with the help of voice message service and short message service .In circumstances such as, at the time of earthquakes or other natural calamities where men is trapped in isolated areas where humans cannot be reached, these robots can be utilized to collect the information and send messages to the related computer.
Robots of this series can make revolutionary changes in the field of defence .If this is produced and imported from other countries this costs almost one crore rupees per robot. Within this short period of time this project achieved many laurels. Our former president Dr.A.P.J Abdul Kalam who went through the details of this project asked the report for study and he promised to give necessary advices and helps for the development of this ‘Robot technology’. The firstly created robot, which traveled only on land, won II nd place in the project presentation conducted by I I T Mumbai. This model has won first place in project presentations, which was held in more than ten colleges in Kerala.
This project is a promised gift of the future .The team is waiting for more encouragements and co-operation regarding the future plan of this project. From the designed piece we can assure that this will be a great success.