Hyderabad firm with DRDO labs develops India’s first quadruped robot and exo-skeleton

Both are dual-use robots and have multiple use cases in both industry and healthcare

Svaya Robotics, a company based in Hyderabad, in association with two DRDO labs — the Research and Development Establishment, Pune (R&DE) and Defence Bio-engineering & Electro Medical Laboratory, Bengaluru, (DEBEL) — has developed India’s first quadruped robot and wearable exo-skeleton.

The company said it has developed the quadruped robot and wearable exo-skeleton as technology demonstrators with design inputs from R&DE and DEBEL respectively. Both are dual-use robots and have multiple use cases in both industry and healthcare, Svaya Robotics said on Monday in a release on the visit of G. Satheesh Reddy, Scientific Adviser to Union Defence Minister and former chairman of DRDO and senior scientists of the two DRDO labs to its facility here.

Seeking to highlight the significance of ‘Make in India’, the company said such robots were now being imported by the country from the U.S. and Switzerland. They are made for structured environments with limited capabilities and not suited for deployment in difficult to manoeuvre terrains and field operational conditions that Indian defence and security forces are uniquely faced with, Svaya said.

Expressing happiness at the progress Svaya made, Mr. Reddy said “development partnerships like these are essential to accelerate development of advanced robotics in India and take them into field trials fast and also keep developing them for dual-use in both defence and industry.” Robotics would be playing a very important role in enabling Indian defence in both augmenting soldiers and also in providing unmatched remote reconnaissance capabilities, he said.

Svaya said the quadruped robot was indigenously developed in collaboration with DRDO. It is made for navigating in unstructured terrains to provide remote reconnaissance and inspection for the defence and security forces which otherwise are not safe for humans to operate in, founder and MD Vijay R. Seelam said.

The exo-skeleton is being developed by Svaya to suit Indian soldier’s anthropometry and augment soldier strength for both walking long distances without fatigue and to lift heavy loads without expending much effort, he said.