CAMRAS

The CAMRAS (Center for Advanced Manufacturing of Robotics and Autonomous Systems) is an industry accelerator set up in ARTPARK @ IISc by the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) to propel advancements in robotics and autonomous systems in India. The industry accelerator aims to reduce the import footprint of robotic & autonomous systems, motors, electronic controllers, actuators, etc. estimated to be worth thousands of crores in these focus areas. As a part of the initiative, a skilling program will also be spearheaded to train 2,800 professionals in the field by 2025.

The industry accelerator commenced operations with 8 projects covering Robotic Actuators, Planar Magnetic Drive Systems, legged walking Robots, Distributed IMU & Autonomy Sensors, Soft Robotics, advanced Intelligent Controller for Unmanned Systems, Flexible Structures for Air autonomous Systems, Autonomous Charging system for Mobile Robots. The total investment by MHI is 78.4 Crs. 6 teams were spearheading these projects as pre-ventures, funded by this program and became startups - Twara Robotics, Comrado Aerospace, Strider Robotics, AlgoFet, VayDyn, Yanendriya.

These startups were incubated under the Startup @ ARTPARK program. They were seed funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

The MHI approval comes under the component of “Setting up of ten industry Accelerators for Technology Development” of the Scheme for Enhancement of Competitiveness in the Indian Capital Goods Sector- Phase-II. MHI has been providing strong momentum under its various schemes to drive manufacturing leadership for India globally, aligned with Atmanirbhar Bharat objectives.