Team Herald
VASCO: BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa campus’ Project PINAKA team was declared winners at recently concluded Boeing University Innovation Leadership Development (Build) program.
Project PINAKA, is a team of motivated engineers, mentored by Prof Shibu Clement, associate professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, working to introduce AI into Aviation and include namely Saksham Agrawal, Kshitij Chhabra, Harshwardhan Shirodkar, Devanshu Wakhale, Srisreyas S, Harshvardhan Chandirasekar, Bharat Gupta, Prithvi Ramesh, Shambhavi Singh, and Devansh Gupta.
The team has innovated Solar Endurance UAV. It is an artificially intelligent autopilot system which is being made to be deployed on electric fixed wing drone. An array of sensors are placed in different configurations, this data is fused together and processed by an AI system which then predicts wind patterns. The post processing system then uses this data to enter air streams to conserve energy. So far the team has made one prototype to collect test data.
The program attracted a record number of entrants, many from tier II and III cities, with more than 850 students and early-stage innovation teams applying from across India. 82 teams were shortlisted through a stringent evaluation process to enter the program’s regional boot camps, said a source from BITS Pilani.
“The BITS teams entered Boeing BUILD competition four months ago and since then Boeing has provided students rigorous training in understanding the entrepreneurial process along with business modelling. Students passed through five stages of the competition where two rounds were interviews with the jury and two rounds were Regional and National level pitch competitions,” a source said.
