Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)

Funded by DoRD, IIT Kanpur

Duration: January’17 - June’19

As a student-initiated project at IIT Kanpur, the project aims to build marine systems to serve as a platform for research on underwater robotics in the institute and create affiliations with industries looking for marine technology solutions. As one of the senior members of the team, I was responsible for the design and manufacturing aspects of the Vehicle. I was also responsible for the recruitment and mentoring of new team members.

We participated with our second vehicle, Anahita, at the National Student Autonomous Vehicle (SAVe) Competition in December 2019, and achieved the runners-up position.

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Mechanical Work

Anahita is an improvement over AUV-IITK’s previous vehicle Varun in terms of its modularity, robustness, ease of manufacturing, and assembly. Rigorous Finite Element Analysis(FEA) is done to improve the robustness and use of Computer Numeric Control(CNC) machining is increased.

Some components are interchangeable and work specific parts increases the vehicle’s modularity significantly. The design is similar to that of a Remotely operated vehicle (ROV). The vehicle is designed to perform complex space-constrained tasks and at the same time, not compromising on maneuverability.

All mechanical parts were first designed on Solidworks and then optimized for weight and structural strength using Ansys Workbench. Their fabrication was done using in-house available facilities at the institute.

Specifications and Key features:

Six degrees of freedom.
Weight of 32 kg with +1% buoyancy
Max coefficient of drag at 0.6 m/s : 0.12
Up to 4 hours of continuous operation capability.
Production cost : Rs. 23,00,000

Anahita CAD Model