New Delhi :
A 14-year-old teenage boy from Gujarat has signed Rs. 5 crore agreement to explore the possibility of producing a drone, created by him that can help detect and defuse landmines in war fields.
Harshwardhan Zala, a class 10th student has been working on a prototype of the landmine-detecting drone since last year after he read about high army casualties in newspapers.
“I first created a land mine detecting robot but realised that since the weight is heavy it would trigger a blast and damage it so I thought of creating a drone which will be at a safe distance while detecting the mines,” said Harshwardhan.
He signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the recently-concluding Vibrant Gujarat summit in Ahmedabad. The state government reportedly had part financed his final prototype which cost him around Rs. 5 lakh. Now the government experts are exploring the possibility of its commercial production.
Briefing about the concept behind drone engineering, Harshwardhan said that once the mine was detected by the drone through an infrared sensor, a 50 gram detonator will complete the task of defusing it. The whiz kid has his interest in science and innovation.
