AAKASH

SINHA
I think being an engineer is essentially being an inventor and
innovator of new technology. It is truly amazing how
engineers/scientists have changed our lives in the past century
and even bigger changes are happening in this century. It is
one of the most satisfying feelings to see the world using one of
your innovations.
- Aakash Sinha, CEO Omnipresent
UNMANNEDPRENEUR
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akash Sinha, Robotics
Scientist and Founder of
Omnipresent Robot Tech,
has an impressive resume.
He has worked with some top US
r obot i cs compani es i ncl udi ng
Lockheed-Martin. As an employee he
proved his mettle, winning the
outstanding employee award as the
Technical Head at iRobot Corp, where
his team delivered over 3,000 PackBot
robots to the USArmy. As an engineer-
scientist too, he was making his mark
with more than 15 international
publications in robotics. After 10 years
in the field of robotics and accolades
galore, it was just about two years ago
that the MS/Ph.D in Robotics from
Carnegie Mellon University decided to
become anentrepreneur.
Born in a small town called Patna in
India near the bank of the great Ganga
river. Aakash grew up in New Delhi
near the river Yamuna and spent some
memorable childhood moments at the
bank of Delhi's lifeline. As a child, he
was passionate about building useful
gadgets and spending time on river
banks. One of his first innovations was
a mini washing machine for quickly
doing his laundry! Later, he went on to
study robotics at Carnegie Mellon
University under the guidance Dr Raj
Reddy.He returnedtoIndia andsawthe
...I dream of a day
when India is
completely self
reliant in producing
robots to defend the
country. In
protecting the
border between us
and China, one of
the major issues is
that it's hard to
maintain soldiers
around the year at
those heights and in
that terrain. We
could make robots
to do that job for the
army...
Yamuna River dying with huge amount
of poisonous toxins in the River. So
toxic that it has caused an alarming
increase in Cancer in millions of people
living close to the River. Even
cleaning the river was extremely
painstaking, hazardous and time taking
for the workers. He came up with an
innovative idea - a fully autonomous
River Cleaning Robot the 'Ro-Boat'.
The Ro-Boat can work 24x7
autonomously using GPS mission
planning and navigation. It can detect
obstacles and waste materials using
smart computer vision algorithms
implemented using a HD camera and
onboard computer. Ro-Boat can
identify 12 different types of wastes
and clean them autonomously. It has
advanced Robotic arms to pick up trash
and toxic materials and collect it in an
onboard waste bin. After collecting the
trash from the river the Ro-Boat comes
back to the riverbank where the
collected waste can be retrieved by
recycling agencies. This system has
performed successfully in the Yamuna
and Ganga Rivers cleaning tonnes of
waste. A system of several Ro-boats
could clean and enter river system in a
year's time.
The Ro-boat innovation is supported
by USAIDand was awarded by themas
top5innovations inIndia in2013. For
A
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FixedWing UAV by Omnipresent
the Ro-Boat and other related innovations Aakash received
several prestigious awards including; MIT-TR35 India 2013,
DST-Lockheed Martin-Stanford IIGP Gold Medal 2013,
Enterprise Asia's Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2012 and CNN
India Positive Award 2013. A research paper on Ro-Boat was
also published in the proceedings of SPIE Intelligent Robots and
Computer VisionConference, SanFrancisco, 2014.
He is passionate about Robotics and its applications for
benefitting the masses. This has motivated him to design
innovations including a crop photography UAV, bomb disposal
robots, and driverless cars. With this vision Aakash founded
Omnipresent Robot Tech. It is one the first companies that is
making robots for Land, Air, Water and Space. This includes,
Robotic Boats, mini drones, bomb disposal robots and Space
robots.
Earlier in his career, he was awarded DARPA Robotics Grand
Challenge Finalist Medal 2005 for co-designing (one of the first)
driverless cars inthe world. Later, working for iRobot Corp he
helped make the Packbot Robot, 1000s of which
are now used by the US Army. For this work he
was awarded iRobot outstanding employee
2006. Recently, he was also invited to CMU to
deliver a guest lecturer in Robotics, Innovation
and Entrepreneurship. He was also invited to
talk on future of robotics at the Global India
business meet 2014, Liverpool, UK.
After initially struggling to find his feet in India,
Aakash got some help from Dr Raj Reddy, his
mentor at Carnegie Mellon. Dr Reddy is often
called the father of American robotics. He won
the Turing Award in computer science, which is
the equivalent of a Nobel Prize. When he heard I
wanted to go back to India, he suggested I take up
research contracts from government agencies
such as the DRDO. He even put me in touch with
them. He added. Today, besides the ANGAD,
Sinha's firm has supplied an Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle (UAV) called the HANS and another
four-propeller UAV called the GARUN to the
DRDO. For the past year, government
departments have been testing these products
and one has been shortlisted for a tender for
almost Rs 100 crore.
For, ISRO(Indian Space Research Organization)
Omnipresent is developing navigation modules
for Chandrayaan-2. The nation's next mission to
the moon, Chandrayaan 2, will involve a
machine descending from an orbiting satellite
onto the moon's surface. Sinha's firm will be
responsible for navigatingandbalancingthe
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Aakash at the National Media Center
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machine during its landing.
Controlling the machine will
involve advanced sensors and
complicated algorithms but
Sinha is confident he can pull it
off. On the sidelines of hi-
profile projects like these,
Aakash and his team of smart
engineers continue to come up
with quirky ideas for robots
that could help you and me.
Whi l e Aakas h r emai ns
fascinated by all kinds of
robots, it is defence automation
that is at the top of his mind. I
dream of a day when India is
completely self reliant in
producing robots to defend the
country. In protecting the
border between us and China,
one of the major issues is that
it's hard to maintain soldiers
around the year at those heights
and in that terrain. We could
make robots to do that job for
the army. He said. Aakash
Sinha plans to continue
working in Robotics to develop
robots to benefit large sections
of the society especially the
underprivileged. u
Enterprise Asia and the Organising Committee of the Asia Pacific
Entrepreneurship Award, 2012
Gold Medal from Department of Science, Technology and
Lockheed Martin India Innovation Growth Programme, 2012
Outstanding Contribution in Technology Award by All Journalist
Association of India, 2010
Outstanding Employee Rock Award at iRobot Corp
Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2012 for Outstanding and
Exemplary Achievement in Entrepreneurship,
CNNAward for Outstanding Contribution in Technology, 2012
Featured among the Top 20 Business Plans at the international TiE
(The Indus Entrepreneur) Conference, 2011, Mumbai
Awarded DARPARobotics Grand Challenge, 2005, by US
Department of Defense for developing a driverless car
First Prize at National Level IEEE Troika 1999 conference
in Hardware Design Contest
UNMANNEDPRENEUR
AWARDS