Unmanned tank can be of particular help to security forces in low-intensity conflicts

The Defence Ministry has been spending crores developing equipments for protection against nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons and leakages but the students of a private university in Faridabad have come up with a unique cost-effective solution.


Prodigies: The Wizitank team with their invention, and guide Prof MS
Giri. Pic/MiD DAY

A group of three students have designed an unmanned ground vehicle 'Wizitank' that can serve and protect military, law enforcement and security professionals engaged in low-intensity conflict and anti-terrorism activities in urban and unstructured environments.

In order to navigate autonomously, the vehicle is mounted with sensors for evaluating the terrain and has software for interpreting the data, path planning to decide a safe course of action, and control to oversee that plan.

Tushar Chugh, third year mechanical engineering student of Manav Rachna College of Engineering who pioneered the entire operation said, "This vehicle is innovative and cost-effective. Sensing and interpretation of the terrain and environment are the most challenging tasks. This vehicle can help in generating terrain profile, detect positive and negative obstacles and build geometric profile."

"This can be part of the low intensity conflict/explosive ordnance disposal programme and homeland security to carry out tasks into a variety of undesirable, hazardous, and potentially life-threatening environments in stealth and NBC threats," Chugh added.

Nitty-Gritties

'Wizitank' is driven by four DC Geared motors (24V, 350rpm) and outfitted with 1 CCD camera, 2 ultrasonic sensors, a global positioning system and a digital compass. CCD camera will be mounted in the centre and the two ultrasonic sensors are placed at left and right of the central camera. The centre portion of the vehicle has batteries for running the electrical circuits and DC motors (Battery used in Bikes 12V, 5Ah). In the rear end there is one E-Box and other electronic circuits, which are used as processing units. E-Box is the main brain and microcontroller only decides priority between digital compass and ultrasonic sensor output. Total Cost for the unmanned vehicle came to only Rs. 29,910. How do you like the new new mid-day.com experience? Share your feedback and help us improve. Read Next Story UPA may face crash heat in Monsoon› Trending Stories Latest Photos Latest Videos Latest Web Stories ADVERTISEMENT Mid-Day Fast ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT