Engineering students to demonstrate UAVs

But no Bangalore college figures in this bid to attract graduate engineers to pursue promising careers in aerospace technologies.

10 teams

DRDO chief controller for research and development (R&D) Prahlada told mediapersons on Saturday that the teams will be demonstrating their UAVs at the DRDO test range in Kolar on Tuesday.

Of the ten teams, two will be eventually chosen based on how their surveillance systems perform, he said.

As part of this unique initiative to motivate engineering graduates to design products for the armed forces, the top two teams will get cash prizes of Rs 3 lakh and Rs 2 lakh respectively.

But before that, the teams will have to go through a gruelling contest which will involve flying the UAVs at a height of 50-100 feet and up to a distance of 100 metres to capture a man-sized object and relaying it to a ground system.

Dr Prahlada said the countrywide competition had attracted 270 colleges. However, none of the engineering colleges from Bangalore could make it to the final round. In all, 10 college teams qualified for the flight demonstration, including Amity School of Engineering & Technology, Noida; Delhi College of Engineering, New Delhi; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai; National Institute of Technology (NIT), Surathkal in Mangalore and Silchar in Assam, Thapar University, Patiala and Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai.

Remote controlled

The remotely piloted UAVs are used for reconnaissance and attack missions by the armed forces.

They could be controlled remotely from the land or mounted on pre-programmed flight planes using dynamic automation systems.