India to commercially market indigenously made submarine robot

India is exploring the possibility of commercially marketing submarine robot.

Goa-based country's premier ocean research organisation, National Institute of Oceanography, which had successfully tried and tested its indigenous autonomous underwater vehicle, has signed a technology commercialisation agreement with Coimbatore-based VEA Automation and Robotics Private Limited, an NIO scientist said.

Maya - a small Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), developed by National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), fitted with sensors for oxygen, chlorophyll, conductivity, turbidity, temperature and depth recently performed two test missions in the Iddukki Dam in Kerala. In the first mission the vehicle was programmed to dive to different depths in a staircase pattern up to 21m, and in the second mission at 1m-depth upto 4 kilometers of continuous operation. She successfully collected data in both the missions.