Genrobotics: Big Problem-Solving Startup

Kerala-based Genrobotics has manufactured a robot that cleans sewage; this may eventually end the barbaric practice of manual scavenging

- KathaKali Chanda

The warren of passages leading to the Genrobotics office in a building on the Technopark campus, on the northern fringes of Thiruvananthapuram, doesn’t even remotely resemble the dream lab of Tony Stark, the billionaire genius inventor portrayed by actor Robert Downey Jr in the movie franchise Iron Man.

There aren’t any Artificial Intelligence-enabled assistants strolling around, nor do any 3D holographic images hang mid-air; just a Transformer toy is seen sharing shelf space with a trophy, if you must identify a leitmotif. But beyond the mustard yellow walls and a slumping bean bag at the reception is a hub of activity where, inspired by the superhero, four 20-somethings are furiously racking their robotics savvy to take on a social scourge no less nefarious than any villain in the Marvel universe.

Just about a year old, Genrobotics scripted its headline act with Bandicoot, a 50-kg, pneumatic powered, remote-controlled robot that goes down into a manhole, spreads its expandable limbs like a spider and scoops out the solid and liquid filth that block urban sewers. It has a robotic arm that, in a 360-degree motion, can sweep the floor of the manhole to collect the debris in a bucket, cleaning manholes in 20 minutes as opposed to over 2 hours that at least three workers would take to do it manually. Through its magnetic mechanism, it also lifts the heavy manhole cover on its own, a job earlier performed by multiple workers. Bandicoot ran its first successful trial in February, at the government medical college in Thiruvananthapuram, and later across the city before it was introduced to the state later that month by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.