Now, Galgotias's soccer drone draws scrutiny after Chinese robodogs row

There seems to be no end to the troubles for Galgotias University. After it was forced to vacate the AI Summit amid a controversy over its Chinese robodogs, the university has now come under scrutiny over a Korean soccer drone that it passed off as its own.

It seems the troubles for Galgotias University are not going to end anytime soon. After being thrown out of the India AI Impact Summit over the Chinese robodogs controversy, the Noida-based university has now attracted scrutiny over another product - a soccer drone ostensibly made in South Korea. This time, too, a Galgotias professor claimed that it was built from scratch by the university.

A video of communications professor Neha Singh, who was involved in the robodogs controversy as well, explaining the in-house "soccer drone" to a reporter has gone viral. Singh, who has unknowingly become the face of the whole row, said the "end-to-end engineering" of the drone was done at the campus.

"This is an interesting device. Its end-to-end engineering to its application, everything has been developed in the university," Singh said. She also claimed that Galgotias had developed India's first "drone soccer arena" on its campus.

"It has a simulation lab and an application arena... that's India's first soccer arena on campus. Here, the product is being developed with more enhanced features," she further said.

The professor sounded convincing. She is, after all, a professor of communications. But it failed to pass muster with the social media army and tech enthusiasts on X, who didn't seem convinced.

Hawk-eyed social media users pointed out that the Galgotias product closely resembled the soccer drone developed by South Korea's Helsel Group. The product is available commercially.