MIT team off to US to take part in UAVs contest

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Dhaksha, a team comprising faculty, students and technical consultants of Madras Institute of Technology, attached to Anna University, Chennai, has been shortlisted to participate in the final leg of UAVForge, an international competition for unmanned air vehicles, to be held at Fort Stewart military base in Georgia ,USA from May 10 to 20. MIT team has been shortlisted from 132 teams across the world.

In the challenge, team Dhaksha is the only team from India competing against teams from countries including USA, Singapore, Holland, Germany and the UK. Unmanned flying vehicles will carry out difficult tasks like flying for two miles, observing a target for three hours, relaying information back to base and vertical takeoff and landing. All UAVs taking part would be small enough to fit in a rucksack and capable of being operated by a single person.

Dr Senthil Kumar, assistant professor, MIT, and team leader of Dhaksha, said, “We’ve got a strong chance of winning despite facing some of the best engineers across the globe from prestigious institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology from USA, Middlesex University from UK, NTU and NUS from Singapore and other UAV industry participants.

Anna University vice-chancellor Prof. P. Mannar Jawahar announced that the university would provide financial assistance to help them develop their mission. “We need the country to support us to demonstrate that MIT will continue to be leaders in research and development.” Dr S. Shanmugavel, registrar of Anna University said.