‘Sleek USV that can even be used as kamikaze’
An Unmanned Surface Vehicle developed by Kochi-based robotic startup Livebotics.
| Photo Credit: R.K. Nithin
Of late, people passing by the banks of Periyar would perhaps have noticed a miniature unmanned boat.
For a Kochi-based robotic start-up, Livebotics has been running a trial of the boat it has developed for the past seven months. The sleek yellow multi-purpose Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) equipped with an unmanned robotic platform stood out among a flurry of drones at the Robotics exhibition held alongside the Robotics Round Table in Kochi on August 23 (Friday).
The easily portable USV with a mono hull design is 1.76-metre-long and 0.90-metre-wide with a draft of 0.31m. With an electric propulsion system for eco-friendly operation and a modular plug-and-play architecture to house and integrate various sensor payloads, it can carry over 100 kg of payload in addition to its 70 kg of built-in components. The USV can operate for around two-and-a-half hours at 3 knots and around one-and-a-half hours at higher speeds.
“Our systems can be operated both remotely and semi-autonomously using our proprietary waypoint-following autopilot system. We can load maps into the system from our command center. The USV has two primary use cases—defense and commercial,” said Ajay Cheruvathoor Mohan, Managing Director of Livebotics.
In defence, it can be used for surveillance, reconnaissance, search and rescue, and even as kamikaze. It can also be roped in for hydrographic and bathymetric survey for both inland and sea-based operations. Equipped with sensors beneath its hull, the USV can be used for scanning the seabed for navigation, water-based construction, and oil and gas industry.
“We have developed the semi-autonomous variant, and the fully autonomous version will be ready by next year. Though we have not launched the product yet, we are already receiving inquiries, including from the defense sector. The USV can also be used for monitoring water pollution and in aquaculture,” said Mr. Mohan.
The base version with camera, Global Positioning System, battery, software, and a command control centre comes with a price tag of ₹40 lakh.
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