SSN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

KALAVAKKAM-603110

SMART INDIA HACKATHON 2020

AUTOMATED BORE-WELL RESCUE ROBOTS

WITH IMAGE PROCESSING

BY:
M.VIGNESH, 3​rd​ YEAR,
MECHANICAL DEPT.

S.VIGNESH, 3​rd​ YEAR,

MECHANICAL DEPT.

R.SWAMENATHAN, 3​rd​ YEAR, MECHANICAL DEPT.

ROSHAN M, 3​rd​ YEAR,

MECHANICAL DEPT.

DIVYA BHARATHI S, 2​nd​ YEAR,

ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING DEPT.

SRIJA S, 2​nd​ YEAR,

ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING DEPT.

GUIDED BY:
DR. G SATHEESH KUMAR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, MECHANICAL DEPT.

BUDGET:​Rs. 20,500/-
1. Project Title:​Automated Bore-Well Rescue Robots with Image Processing

2. Broad Subject:​Robotics, Mechatronics and Automation

3. Project Duration​: 6 months

4. Budget​: Rs. 20,500/-

5. Project Summary:

The aim of this project is to develop an innovative idea to carry through bore well rescue
operations without hindrance. The number of accidents related to uncovered boreholes is
rising at an alarming rate jeopardizing the lives of innocent children. According to recent
estimates, about two thirds of the children who fall into a borewell shaft have died each year.
The rescue operations pose a great difficulty and there is also a great risk factor for the rescue
workers. The purpose of the project proposed is to successfully secure the lives of the
children and also ensure the safety of the rescue workers simultaneously. The robot structure
consists of a power supply, switch pad, gear motors, Oxygen concentrator, camera and
Microcontroller. The condition of the trapped child is captured with a CCTV camera and
monitored on a TV. A safety balloon is introduced in order to provide extra safety. Once the
lifting rod (the robotic arm) reaches a safe position, the robotic hand is used to clamp around
the child. Safety balloons are provided inside the palm of the robot hand to avoid injuries
while retrieval of the child. The arm is then reversely operated so as to lift the child. The
programming language used is Embedded C. This robot type machine can rescue a trapped
child from the bore well in a minimum amount of time and increased safety.

6. Keywords:
Borewell accidents, Rescue Robots, Mechanisms, image processing

7. Objectives
o To improvise on the existing system of rescue operation (mechanical model)
o Identification of technical problems through survey and study.
o Implementation of proposed solution incorporating obstacleavoidance, detection and
path planning.
o Experimental investigations implementing the developed robot andalgorithms.

8. Introduction
The number of wells and bore wells in India is now around thirty million, with bore wells
accounting for more than 50 percent as shown in Fig.1. Growing water scarcity is one of the
most woeful problems faced by people in India. The ever decreasing water level is unable to
meet the daily needs of the people. Bore wells are constructed to fulfil these needs.
 Fig.1: Statistics on state wise bore-well accidents

The negative of this is that most of the bore wells are left uncovered after exhausting
the ground water supply in that region. This has led to the loss of many innocent lives. Small
children without noticing the bore well slip inside and get trapped. There is no proper facility
available to undergo rescue operations in such situations. In most cases a parallel hole is dug
up and then a horizontal path is made to reach to the child. It takes nearly 30 to 40 hours to
dig the parallel pit, by which time the child would have already died. Fig. 2 shows a rescued
child which is a rare event. It is a time consuming and inefficient process which is also
extremely risky. Moreover, it requires lots of energy and expensive resources which are not
easily available everywhere or on time. Even if there is a chance of saving the child, there is
high probability for severe injuries.

Fig. 2: A rescued child

In most of the cases the child rescue operation ends in failure. It is extremely difficult
to lift the child out of the narrow shaft of the bore well. After doing extensive case studies,
we have taken up this serious issue and hope to come up with an effective solution. The aim
is to minimise the chance of fatality of the child, maximise its safety and make deaths caused
by uncovered bore wells a thing of the past. The depiction of traditional methodologies
adopted so far is done in Fig. 3.
 Fig. 3: Traditional methods of rescuing operation

9. Definition of the Problems:

There is no standard operating procedure when it comes to a bore well rescue operation.
The general method is a very long and risky process. It involves drilling a wider shaft parallel
to the narrow bore well shaft and drilling horizontally to reach the victim. The retrieval of the
victim in this process is extremely difficult. It poses a dangerous situation not only for the
victim but also to the people attempting to rescue them. There is a great chance of the child
slipping to an even greater depth under the ground. Also as these incidents generally take
place outside of the urban regions there is no immediate help such as fire stations, ambulance
services, etc., nearby. Time is a very crucial factor as the victim is deprived of oxygen
rapidly. We hope that our project will make a significant step towards solving these
problems.

10. Review of status of Research and Development in the subject

10.1 National Status&International Status

Many researchers have worked on developing a mechanism that would help simplify the
problem of rescuing [1-4] of which a few only have been put to use in real-time. Some of the
solutions that appear in articles on newspapers are inspiring, but the trouble the victim
underwent could never be forgotten [5-10]. The mechanisms that have been used so far are
manual in almost all the cases. So there is a need for robot with automatic capability that
could be deployed for making the lives of the victims and the rescue team easier. Attempts
would be made to use the knowledge gained from the basic of engineering and robotics [11]
to provide a implementable solution.

11. Novelty and importance of the proposed project in the context of current status

Our project deals with an innovative concept of a bore well rescue robot which is
automated and can rescue a child without injury and in a much reduced timeframe.The rescue
operation mainly consists of three processes, them being: approaching the child, handling the
body, and extracting the child out of the well. A regular rescue operation could easily do the
first and third operations but there is a great chance of injury as hooking up of body and
clothes is involved. Our projects aim at handling such a situation by ensuring extreme safe
handling of the victim.

12. Patent details​(domestic and international)​: Filing a patent for the design is achievable if
design is novel

13. Work plan and Detailed technical information

13.1 Methodology
The plan is to develop a prototype after performing analysis on thepreliminary design.
Simultaneously various algorithms would be developedand tested for efficiency. Finally,
drive systems are experimented tillthe most efficient combination is finalized and the
corresponding prototype ismade. Then, a real time study on its effectiveness is conducted and
the results arepublished. The complete plan of implementation is presented in theflowchart
given below.
 Fig. 4: Flowchart representing the methodology of approach

14. Time schedule of activities giving milestones

14.1 Time Schedule of Activities through Gantt chart

Activity/Months 1 2 3 4 5 6
Procurement of
equipments
Design and
fabrication of
robotic arm
Interfacing
positioning and
Localization
instruments with
robotic arm
Testing in
Simulated
environment and
algorithm
refinement.
Consolidation of
performance
results

15. Deliverables
● A working prototype of the robotic device implementable in a borewell rescue
scenario
● Filing a patent for the design if unique
● Publishing papers based on the results obtained

16. Target beneficiaries of the proposed work

This project is aimed at solving the crucial problem of children who lose their lives to
uncovered bore well shafts. This will help in bringing this lesser known problem to the wider
public. People in rural regions or near ground water reservoir regions will greatly benefit
from this. Parents in these regions can have a hope of saving their children if anything
untoward happens. In the long run this will also create awareness about the exploitation of
ground water reserves.

17. Suggested plan of action for utilization of research outcome expected from the
project
 17.1 As journal publication: ​Atleast one conference and one journal publication
would be attempted with the derived results.
17.2 Patent filing: ​If theconcept is still new then it would be attempted for filing a
patent.
17.3 Project preparation for submission to external funding: ​Once this project is
moved on to the stage where implementation of machine learning is made possible,
proposals for external funding would be prepared and submitted. The prototype
development hence would be useful to provide proof-of-concept.

18. References

[1] Meuth, R., Saad, E. W., Wunsch, D. C., &Vian, J. (2009, November). Adaptive task
allocation for search area coverage. InTechnologies for Practical RobotApplications, 2009.
TePRA 2009. IEEE International Conference on, 67-74
[2] Tsalatsanis, A., Yalcin, A., &Valavanis, K. P. (2009). Dynamic Task Allocationin
Cooperative Robot Teams.International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 6(4)
[3] Liu, Y., &Nejat, G. (2013). Robotic urban search and rescue: A survey from the control
perspective. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, 72(2), 147-165.
[4] Cayrpunar, O., Tavl, B., &Gazi, V. (2008). Dynamic robot networks for search and rescue
operations.
[5]https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/amaravati/2-year-old-who-fell-into-borewell-resc
ued-after-12-hours/articleshow/60080870.cms
[6]https://www.ndtv.com/andhra-pradesh-news/2-year-old-boy-who-fell-into-borewell-rescue
d -after-11-hours-1738031
[7]http://www.kscst.iisc.ernet.in/spp/38_series/spp38s/synopsis_exhibition/148_38S1474.pdf
[8]http://www.tedusar.eu/files/summerschool2012/alexander_kleiner.pdf
[9]https://contest.techbriefs.com/2016/entries/machinery-automation-robotics/6797
[10]http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/160817/2-yr-old-boy-rescued-fro
m-borewell-after-11-hours-rescue-operation.html
[11] M.P.Groover (2001), Industrial Robotics – Technology, Programming and Applications,
McGraw-Hill

19. List of facilities and Equipments available with Department for the project
● Manufacturing Lab
● Mechatronics Lab
● Robotics Lab
● Computers with licensed design software
● Computers with licensed analysis software

20. Budget Estimates (in rupees):

EQUIPMENTS

S.NO Name Nos. Cost (Rs.)

1 Robot arm 1 7000
2 Motors and controllers 1 3000
 3 Electronic compass for localization, IMU 3000
4 Camera module 1 2000
5 Fabrication and testing 3500
6 Miscellaneous consumables 2000
TOTAL COST (Rs.) 20500

21. Budget Justification

The budget has been worked out after seeing a list of sources for the equipments, and
the best possible prices for the given quality of equipments has been assigned. The structural
components, motors and the drivers are available with our seniors which could be used for
our project and hence we could develop the complete system with the proposed budget.