As of March 31 this year, the total number of patents filed in India was 1,204 and the total number of international patents filed was 529. Of these, 155 patent applications were filed in the US. IIT-Madras bears 70 per cent of the cost of filing foreign patents with the inventor bearing the rest.

New Delhi: Indian Institute of Technology Madras has crossed the 1,000-mark in patents generated by it in India and abroad, officials said. The number of patents filed by the institute has also doubled in the last five years with the US accounting for the highest number of patents filed outside India.
As on March 31 this year, the total number of patents filed in India was 1,204 and the total number of international patents filed was 529. Of these, 155 patent applications were filed in the US. IIT-Madras bears 70 per cent of the cost of filing foreign patents with the inventor bearing the rest.

“Another significant factor was the large number of international patents (218) filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The PCT assists applicants in seeking patent protection internationally for their inventions. By filing one international patent application under the PCT, applicants can subsequently seek protection for an invention in all the countries that are party to the PCT (153 countries, as on date),” said Ravindra Gettu, Dean, Centre for ICSR.

Mr Gettu said the Centre has undertaken many initiatives in the recent years to drive this increase in patents being filed in India and abroad. “A dedicated IP Cell has been established at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), which conducts intellectual property (IP) awareness programme regularly to sensitise students or faculty on the importance of IP protection and monetisation,” he said.

Mr Gettu said the institute has enabled patent filing through awareness campaigns among faculty members and students. “The processes have also been made easier and faster, without interfering in publications and thesis completion, which are often the primary focus of our researchers. Monetisation of IP is also a recent focus area to promote patenting and fund more developments,” he said.

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The team claims that at present, generating microgravity (gravity experienced is close to zero) is possible only through space stations, satellites, space shuttles, sounding rockets, and drop towers, almost all of which are beyond the reach of most educational institutions in India.

New Delhi: Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have developed algorithms for drones to help study how fire behaves in space stations, shuttles and satellites. According to the team, a multirotor microgravity platform can also simulate reduced-gravity environments similar to Moon and Mars, thereby recreating those conditions on Earth for experiments.

The team claims that at present, generating microgravity (gravity experienced is close to zero) is possible only through space stations, satellites, space shuttles, sounding rockets, and drop towers, almost all of which are beyond the reach of most educational institutions in India.

“Another option is to use ‘free-fall’ flights on Earth to create microgravity. The free fall of sounding rockets and free fall of payloads from high altitude balloons and drop towers can also enable microgravity,” Kedarisetty Siddhardha, research scholar, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Madras told PTI.

“These microgravity platforms provide stable and high-quality microgravity. However, it takes a few months to years to gain access to any of the existing microgravity platforms. Moreover, the cost to access these platforms’ services is not affordable by many educational and research institutions,” Mr Siddhardha added.

The team has developed an algorithm that can precisely control multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) such as quadrotors or drones. The team has published this research in reputed peer-reviewed international journals, including Aerospace Systems, Aerospace Science and Technology, and Microgravity Science and Technology.

“These algorithms and techniques for multirotor UAV control could accurately maintain its acceleration. Although multirotor UAVs currently do not have high payload capacities, they are readily available at a low cost, making them accessible to all. We have conducted flight tests using a quadrotor and a hexrotor that we developed and found that those flights attained stable and high-quality microgravity levels,” Mr Siddhardha said.

“The research team showed that existing quadrotors could be turned into microgravity platforms via minor design modifications and appropriate control, estimation, and automation algorithms. Furthermore, the methods and algorithms developed by us for turning multirotors into microgravity platforms are generic. So, they can be replicated easily to create multirotor microgravity platforms with high payload capacities,” Mr Siddhardha added.

The two multirotors that the team built and flew are the first UAVs to conduct on board experiments in microgravity. Earlier, efforts by other researchers to make UAVs as microgravity platforms did not see much success as those platforms could not attain gravity levels close to zero.

“While most conventional microgravity platforms can simulate only microgravity, a multirotor microgravity platform can also simulate reduced-gravity environments like that on the Moon and Mars.

“All it takes is a change in one parameter in the software that Siddhardha embeds in his multirotor that autonomously performs the manoeuvres required to achieve the level of gravity needed,” said Joel George Manathara, Assistant Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Madras.

The team has carried out experiments on board his multirotor microgravity platforms to observe capillary action as well as the change in the shape of the liquid meniscus in microgravity.

“These experiments undoubtedly prove that multirotors can be turned into platforms on which microgravity experiments can be carried out. Nowadays, almost every educational institution has a robotics lab or a flying club with multirotors. Thus, this research opens up the possibility of conducting experiments in microgravity at every university in India,” Mr Siddhardha said.

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