IITG Partners with AMTRON and RCH for Drone Development

Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG) has joined forces with Assam Electronics Development Corporation Ltd (AMTRON) and RC Hobbytech Solutions Pvt. Ltd (RCH) to enhance drone-based training, research, and development in various sectors, such as agriculture, disaster management, wildlife conservation, and healthcare. 

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on 18th January 2023 between Prof. Parameswar K. Iyer, Officiating Director, IIT Guwahati, S. Sundar, IFS - Managing Director, AMTRON, and Mr. Biswajit Dey, Co-Founder - RC Hobbytech Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Under the MoU, the three organizations will work together to establish a Commercial Drone Flying School at IIT Guwahati campus. The school will offer commercial drone flying courses and other related services such as renewing drone flying licenses, securing necessary commercial drone permits, and helping students prepare for drone flying tests. Additionally, the school will also connect students with organizations that need professional drone flyers.

Professional courses in the field of drones will also be offered, covering a wide range of services such as Drone-based survey and mapping, Geographic Information Systems, coding, and AI-related courses. These classes will take place at the IIT Guwahati campus.

The partnership also aims to work on the initial development of prototype drones for agriculture and surveillance purposes. 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.

Furthermore, the partnership will develop a Disaster Response Management System to Identify and Actuate any Disaster Response within the State of Assam. 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.

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, Mr. Biswajit Dey, Co-Founder – EduRade said, “Our mission is to train youths of North Eastern 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 endeavor that our efforts will bear fruit and youths of this region will be able to take the self-employment route at large scale.”

It is notable that IIT Guwahati is progressively working on developing a network of industry and academic experts to work on disaster risk reduction. The recent partnership will play a crucial role in achieving this goal.