CHENNAI : brilliant minds product The RoboFish has been designed to detect obsta cles, avoid them, choose the less hindered path and in short mimic the real life fish in every pos sible aspect.

A group of four mechanical engineering students from IIT-Madras have developed a robotic fish, which can be used for under water surveillance, besides identifying obstructions and pollution in water.

Ashish Ranjan, a third year mechanical engineering student and one of the team member said RoboFish is one of the innovation is that promises to revolutionise underwater reconnaissance and ocean exploration.

“The main challenge involved in building this robot was designing it’s complicated tail motion, which we accomplished by using a single servo motor,” he said.

The tail is made of blocks connected by links, so designed that controlling just one of them results in a natural tail motion. An acrylic casing, that houses a water proof compartment inside which is placed the circuitry, forms the body. Ranjan pointed that the RoboFish has been designed to detect obstacles, avoid them, choose the less hindered path and in short mimic the real life fish in every possible aspect.

Another set of students developed an accident prevention system, which is aimed at attempting to reduce the number of accidents by developing an intelligent system to warn drivers when they are at high risk.