HYDERABAD: The Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IIT-H) is investing more than Rs 1 crore in six startups that are working in the areas of autonomous navigation.
These deep-tech startups largely work on building drones, autonomous indoor logistics ecosystem for warehousing, surveillance UAVs, etc.
Prototype-ready startups, namely UAVIO Labs, which is working on building sentient drones, ALOG Tech building an autonomous indoor logistics ecosystem for warehousing and Aviac, which is working on ecological monitoring using drones, would get Rs 25 lakh each.
“We are building intelligent machines that are fairly capable of autonomy. Our drones will be able to collect data in real-time and would also be able to make judgements on the environment around it to avoid any obstacles,” said Rishabh Choudhary, co-founder, UAVIO Labs. He said they would be utilising the fund to develop algorithms and test the drone for different sectors.
Apart from this, IIT-H’s incubator iTIC-TiHAN (Technology Innovation Hub on Autonomous Navigation) is also investing up to Rs 10 lakh each in early-stage startups, namely Rovonize, which is building surveillance UAVs, Qotpars which are making the finest drones for video and photo applications and Adiabetic, which is working on the passive thermal cooling system for li-ion battery packs.
“Through the TiHAN programme, IIT-H is focusing on building research capabilities in the domain of autonomous navigation, UAVs and ROVs. In addition to the startups, these facilities will also be available for researchers and industry at large,” said professor P Rajalakshmi, project director, TiHAN. The iTIC incubator at IIT-H supports deep tech startups and is going to support more number of startups in the coming months.
These deep-tech startups would largely work on building drones, autonomous indoor logistics ecosystem for warehousing, surveillance UAVs
