21 hours ago
- Science
- New Indian Express
This Kerala startup is building drones that can see through the rubble
To help realise that goal, Augsenselab recently raised USD 0.5 million in pre-seed funding from Emul Tek Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Solar Industries India Ltd. The company is also in advanced talks with iDEX, the Ministry of Defence's innovation arm, to build prototypes for national defence and disaster management.
But the founders are clear-eyed about the timeline. 'This is an aerospace-grade product. It's a deep R&D effort that takes time,' says Kannan. 'Getting from TRL-4 to TRL-8 and making a deployable product will take at least four years. We're building for the long haul.'
Meanwhile, Augsenselab is also developing hyper-local weather prediction systems, which could transform early warning efforts in a state like Kerala, where most landslides are triggered by cloudbursts. 'IMD forecasts are too broad. We want to say: not just Kochi, but Kaloor will face a cloudburst at 3 pm,' says Naveen.
Their atmospheric profiling tech measures minute changes in the air's refractive index, allowing pinpoint accuracy. A pilot project is underway in Kerala, funded by K-DISC and deployed by the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA). The data is also being used in a landslide prediction model developed by IIT Roorkee.
'If we can detect a cloudburst early, we can issue warnings with hours of lead time,' says Kannan. 'We've deployed test systems in zones like Kannichira near Kottiyoor in Kannur.'
