Kochi, September 20: India’s first underwater robotic drone has been  developed at  the Maker Village hardware incubator here. It  can send real-time video of ships and other underwater structures to help with their repair and maintenance. Called   EYEROVTUNA it is said to be the first commercial Remotedly Operated Vehicle (ROV)/ underwater drone.
The drone is the work of EyeROV Technologies, a company incubating at Maker Village. The development of the product of EyeRov was largely supported by Kerala Start up Mission (KSUM) through various schemes. The first unit  was handed over to the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), a unit of the Defence R&D Organisation that ordered the drone and  assisted in the development.
The drone will be used by NPOL for research and development activities which in turn would result  in  commercial product for defence purposes.
The robotic drone, developed by Johns T Mathai and Kannappa Palaniappan P of EyeROV Technologies, can be navigated up to a depth of 50 meters to take real-time HD video images to examine ship hulls or undersea cables or bridge moorings, eliminating the need for costlier and riskier manual inspection by divers.
Currently  60  hardware companies from across the country working on cutting edge technologies  are incubating from the 30000 sqft area of Maker Village. EyeROV belongs to the first batch of  5 start-ups which started incubating  at the Village.