IIT Delhi To Start ‘Innovation Science Park’ To Aid DRDO And Establish Agriculture, Electric Vehicle Research Units

Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi (IIT-Delhi) is going to set up two new units - centre for electric vehicle and centre for the cyber-physical system - along with an innovation science park at its campus from next year, Hindustan Times has reported.

Announcing the move on Friday (9 November), director of IIT-Delhi V Ramgopal Rao said, the two centres would focus on solving society's contemporary issues. He stated that electric vehicles can play a big role in curbing pollution but they are not in use owing to unavailability, inefficiency. The centre would thus work on issues like bringing down their cost, reducing the charging time and improving the battery capacity.

Centre for cyber-physical system of IIT-Delhi will help in solving issues using information technology and will focus on connecting systems to the internet which will provide data based on which accurate decisions can be made.

Rao citing an example of the use of IT in agriculture said that for improving productivity in agriculture, farmers need to have accurate information about water content, soil moisture and which nutrient or fertiliser to use. For accessing that information, the researchers would need to deploy sensors which can collect the data and help farmers take intelligent decisions.

He also said that both the centres would be aided by the industries both public and private.

The institute will also set up an innovation science park to contribute in a major to way to Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

IIT-Delhi’s registrar Sandeep Chatterjee said that the innovation park will be working on several verticals but half of the research conducted there will be done for the DRDO.