Karnavati University (KU) held its Defence Demo Day on Friday, June 24, to showcase a series of defence innovations, an important step toward forming industry-academia partnerships. Among the attendees were Major General Mohit Wadhwa, General of Command (GOC), Golden Katar Division and around 25 Indian Army personnel. The GOC witnessed demonstrations from at least 20 odd defence startups from across the country. The event was organised by the Defence Design and Technology Incubator of India (DDTII) at KU.This was Gujarat’s second defence incubator.
Among the start-ups showing off their innovations were Holo World, Sagar Defence Engineering, BigBangBoom Solutions, ArmedBots, SecureFire Safety Industries, RDL Technologies, Plutomen Technologies, and Disecto Technologies, Achuk Environmental Solutions, Teamcognito Solutions, SpaceFields, EyeROV Technologies and Elcomponics Aerob Technologies.
DDTII was established to become a leading defence, design and technology startup incubator in the country and to support the Make-in-India and Atmanirbhar Bharat vision for aerospace and defence.
Ritesh Hada, president of Karnavati University, explained the idea behind the initiative. He said,“Karnavati University is focused on excellence in teaching and interdisciplinary learning. The clarion call of obtaining ‘Atmanirbharta’ in the defence manufacturing sector by the Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlines the focus of the government on supporting homegrown innovations in the defence and innovation sector. In line with this, we at Karnavati University not just launched the state’s second defence design and technology incubator but also are engaging with startups from time to time.”
“The idea behind this demonstration is to let startups understand the ground-zero challenges faced by the Indian Defence Forces and let them know about the innovations. This will mark the beginning of a healthy dialogue between startups and the defence sector personnel that will provide an opportunity for startups to understand the requirements so that their needs can be better addressed with ultramodern technology. I am thankful for the encouragement extended by the Army personnel of the Golden Katar Rifles and I am sure this will go a long way in supporting homegrown defence innovations,” Hada further added.
Chirag from Plutomen was displaying an Augmented Reality Frontline Platform, which can be used away from the combat field as maintenance helping hand to the forces. While explaining its functioning, he said, “The military has various equipment and they need to maintain those on regular basis and if they are not getting any assistance to maintain their equipment then they can simply schedule a call from these glasses and it will showcase the instructors sitting across the globe real-time footage the feed can be projected directly to them and they can easily fix the issue.”
Mrudul Babbar Co-Founder of Sagar Defence Engineering created a versatile boat called Boat in the box. “This device can be retrofitted on any kind of system, irrespective of shape size and proportion and that will bring autonomy to the boat. The task of a human boarding a boat board unmanned vessels and platforms, with this technology these vessels with doing the task. We are saving lives on and out of the land so that hazardous tasks can be implemented on this vessel we have created. It has a top speed of 30 knots and there is a drone platform on the boat which can launch and charge the drone autonomously. the primary application of this vessel is searching and rescue along with security and surveillance operations. We can mount ammunition and other loads on this vessel.”
Vivek Pandey from Elcomponics Aerob Technologies displayed a tethered drone his company created. As he was explaining the characteristics of his device, he said “This is a tethered drone system which can be mounted on both a still and moving platform moving at the speed of 50 KM per hour. It can take off from a moving vehicle and it can also land on a moving vehicle . It will be primarily used for intelligence and surveillance. We have tested it at Noth 4700 metres at North Pulu, this drone fulfills light tank requirements, which can move up to high-altitude regions like Sikkim s it can easily take off and let you know of any enemy object advancing towards our side.
Major General Wadhwa had an in-deph conversation with each participant.
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