HYDERABAD: Coming up with new models that could help many people in different ways, students of International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) made best use of the institute's two-day R&D showcase programme to exhibit their skills.

This is the 11 {+t} {+h} annual R&D showcase programme and over 28 models from different fields, including robotics, visual information technologies, earthquake, spatial informatics etc were demonstrated by students.

Multi-terrain vehicle

The autonomous multi-terrain vehicle demonstrated by a group of third year electronics students was cynosure of the showcase. The vehicle can do vision-based and GPS-based navigation and be used in surveillance and exploration activities.

The aim was to build a symbiotic system consisting of a ground based robot and a quad copter. The process, controlling the quad copter runs on the CPU of the ground robot. Using the bottom camera of the quad copter, the ground robot will be able to localise itself. Also, the front camera can be used to get images of the path that lies ahead, informs Basil George, a member of the group.

Wheelchair

A group of second year computer science students demonstrated a gesture-controlled wheelchair. A ball mouse, two direct current motors, one micro controller board and a battery are used to develop this gesture-controlled wheelchair. The ball mouse is placed on the head of the wheelchair user and mouse strings are connected to the controller. As the mouse detects the signals, it passes the same to controller and based on the signals, the wheelchair moves, explains Ravi Agarwal, a member of the group.

This model can be helpful for people, who use wheelchairs but cannot move their hands and legs. Using the ball mouse, they can move the wheelchair, he says.

Students from over 600 different colleges witnessed these models demonstrated by IIIT students. The objective was to provide a platform for students to display their skills in implementing theoretical knowledge into practice, said P.J. Narayanan, Dean (R&D) IIIT-Hyderabad.