IIT Kanpur partners with Bharat Dynamics for manufacturing ventilators

The indigenous ventilator has been developed by IIT Kanpur's incubated startup

The Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur (IIT-K) will work with defence public sector undertaking (PSU) Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) to manufacture ventilators needed in India's medical response to the coronavirus pandemic.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between BDL, IIT Kanpur’s incubator Foundation for Innovation and Research in Science and Technology (FIRST) and Nocca Robotics Private Limited (NRPL), which is an incubated startup of the Institute.

“Our project for developing an affordable ventilator has been going from strength to strength and now with Bharat Dynamics supporting us, we will be able to scale up production and make this device widely available as a ‘Make in India’ product,” IIT Kanpur director Abhay Karandikar said.

He invited more enterprises to join hands with the IIT Kanpur to encourage indigenous design and development.

“Together, we will strive for our best to serve the nation at this critical hour,” BDL chairman and managing director Commodore Siddharth Mishra (Retd) said while lauding the IIT Kanpur engineers for the indigenous technology.

Responding to the call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nocca Robotics designed and developed a high-end yet affordable indigenous ventilator for providing life support to critically ill covid-19 patients under the supervision of IIT Kanpur team led by Prof Amitabha Bandyopadhyay.

Apart from providing support to critical patients, the ventilator’s design has unique features to safeguard frontline healthcare workers from exposure to the virus.

To support the project, a group of eminent business leaders, medical devices experts and experienced clinicians from India and abroad came forward to provide mentorship. The association of BDL also enabled guidance and inputs from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS).

According to IIT Kanpur, the fully functional ventilator prototype is in conformity of the standing technical features and specifications.

BDL is a mini-ratna category-1 company under the department of defence production, union ministry of defence. Headquartered at Hyderabad, BDL has been catering to needs of the Indian armed forces since its incorporation in 1970.

It boasts of global state-of-the-art facilities for manufacture and supply of guided missiles, underwater weapons, airborne products and allied defence equipment. BDL is the preferred manufacturing partner of DRDO in the production of majority of the missiles under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).