SURIYAN INNOVATIVES LLP

In their own words

Suriyan Innovatives LLP designs and develops innovative products using cutting edge technology and latest advancements in the areas of Robotics, Control systems, Sensors, and power electronics. The team has more than 50 years of combined product development experience. Innovation and frugal engineering are the core principle of the firm. The team’s lead has 28 years of working with/for multinational companies that develop consumer, household, and computer accessories-based products. Team members have extensive knowledge in design of robotic subsystems, electronics, electromechanical actuators, sensors and mechanical subsystems. Currently developing automated agricultural machineries varies from harvesting of tea leaves from bushes and also combine harvesting of cereal-based crops. A patent pending technology applied for the autonomous crawler-based vehicle to carry implements that can be used for multi-crop, multi-process and multipurpose. What is the problem ? Tea harvesting is important and a labor consuming process in the cultivation of tea. To harvest one hectare 20-25 manpower is required for 6 hours. So, total of 120-150 man-hours of labor is required to harvest one hectare of tea plantation. As tea harvesting industry must adopt to changing demographics and social economic situation, it has to abandon old manual picking method to some mechanized methods, and still depletion of work force leaves the tea industry in the struggle. Most of the South Indian tea plantations are cultivated in the hilly regions and in difficult terrains. The older generation which was trained and willing to do that kind of work is gone now. The younger population had migrated out of the tea estates for better fortune. The mechanization solution developed in Japan, or any other existing solution are not suitable to Indian terrain and cultivation methodology. Without any batter mechanized solution for the tea harvesting the industry is going from difficult to worst situation. So, an indigenized solution for harvesting and potentially doing multi-process in tea plantation is required. Tea harvesting mechanization require a vehicle (platform) and shearing unit (implement) that can handle sloppy terrain and slippery paths. Also, the challenge is to harvest top layer of the tea bushes as the crop. How is it solved by the innovation ? The current innovation about an all-terrain agro-machinery maneuvered through hilly region to harvest tea leaves from its bushes. A compact all-terrain vehicle that is electrically driven and autonomously controlled or remotely controlled. The vehicle platform carries shearing module that cuts the top layer of the tea bushes for selected tender leaves. The all-terrain machinery (vehicle) use crawler wheels that move through in-between spaces of bushes. Sensing of the top surface essential to know how much depth the cutter can be brought down from the vehicle mounting. The sensed height is used to compute and appropriately move the height of the cutter by using servo motors and controls algorithm. The sensor is a rolling unit that is attached to tea harvesting unit with encoders that measure relative distance (heigh) from the bush top surface. Through the encoder value the It is dynamically controlled as the vehicle is moving through the bushes. The leaves are cut using fast moving shear cutters and. then transported using a novel method. The transported leaves are collected in bags that can be taken out after it gets filled up. About the innovation in vehicle construction: the vehicle has vertical and horizontal members connecting two crawler wheels straddle over the tea bushes. The vehicle is compact, so it can be maneuvered well in the narrow paths and turns. While it is compact it should not fell off during slope climbing or ride alongside-ways slopes. So, tt has the patent pending mechanism that keeps it from falling during the climbing or riding on slopes. The mechanism has a feedback loop-controlled subsystem that senses gravity angle and corrects its position as moves away from the verticality position.

Written by the company on its public Startup India profile. Not verified by us.