IIT Roorkee, TMS sign MoA to develop low cost Automated Guided Vehicles

By OUR STAFF REPORTER
Roorkee, 15 Jan: IIT Roorkee and Tetrahedron Manufacturing Services (TMS) Pvt Ltd signed an MoA on Monday for a period of 3 years with the aim to design and develop low cost Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) which should be saleable under the price of Rs1,00,000 with appropriate profit margin.
Manufacturing industries nowadays are using the futuristic technologies like Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV), 3D printing, Robotics like never before in the past. The manufacturing industries are pouring huge sums of money into bringing this change. Material handling and movement is the section which involves maximum number of manpower within the industry and is highly affected by the fluctuations due to human involvement. A standard automated guided vehicle used in industry to transport the material within the industrial premises without any human intervention usually costs around Rs 15 to 20 Lakhs. Using such an autonomous system benefits the vehicles to make routing decisions based on real-time feedback of environment conditions along with the ease of navigational adjustments. But to make this transition holistic and effective, there is need to also bring the small and medium scale manufacturing industries into this journey towards a better future. IIT Roorkee and Tetrahedron Manufacturing Services (TMS), a tech based startup by IIT Roorkee, NIT Rourkela & IIM Calcutta alumni, has come forward to tackle this hurdle and to “design & develop a Low-cost Automated Guided vehicle (AGV)“. They wish to sell it under a budget of Rs 1 Lakh per vehicle so that even small and medium scale industries can take a step forward toward automation.
TMS was founded by Nitin Kumar and Alok Kumar Sahu in 2015 and has achieved 300% year on year growth for the past three years. Nitin Kumar is an IIT Roorkee alumnus (2003).
Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee, said, “In this MoA IIT Roorkee is being given the task to bring down the cost with effective technology.”
Nitin Kumar added, “This pact with IIT Roorkee will bring about exchange of experts, research development, training, and industrial relations for mutual benefits. This collaboration is expected to bring a major change involving research and development, as well as sharing of facilities, data, knowledge, and skills in related areas, with the scientific and technology expertise.“