India's 1st septic tank cleaning robot; All you need to know

In a bid to eliminate manual scavenging and boost swachhata abhiyan, India's first septic tank/manhole cleaning robot is now offering an end-to-end solution.

The technology is called ‘Homosep Atom’ and has been developed by the start-up incubated in the Department of Science and Technology (DST)-Technology Business Incubator (TBI) of IIT Madras. It has reached 16 cities in different parts of India and facilitates extensive blade cleanings, solid waste desilting, suction, and storage through a single device.

It is reducing the cost of owning multiple assets and promotes robotic cleaning in sewers.

As per PIB report, DST-Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) are established in Academic /Technical /R&D Institutions as part of NIDHI programme to support and nurture knowledge driven innovative start-ups into successful enterprises.

The startup called Solinas, developed this affordable robotic solution integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) to inspect, clean, and manage cofined space for sanitation purposes. It helped clean up manhole blockages and reduced sewer overflows in Madurai.

The application of Homosep Atom was also extended to the intricate lanes of Chennai's densely populated areas. Solinas is a deep-tech and climate tech startup born out of IIT Madras, founded with the intent to solve the challenges that revolutionizes the water and sanitation sector and improves the climatic conditions.

The IIT Madras DST-TBI was also instrumental in advancing the product development of Solinas in the early stages. The startup specialises in developing miniature robots, including India's 1st 90mm water robot and 120mm sewer robot, capable of navigating through pipelines below 100mm to address contamination challenges in water-sewer pipelines.