IIT Kanpur has partnered with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to create a DRDO-Industry-Academia Centre of Excellence (DIA CoE) on its campus. This center focuses on interdisciplinary research aimed at developing next-generation defense technologies. DRDO is building an ecosystem to facilitate technology development in the academic environment through experienced faculty and bright scholars, in conjunction with the efforts of the different scientists from DRDO laboratories.
Prof Manindra Agrawal, Director of IIT Kanpur, speaking about the collaboration, said: ”With the changing times, the need for advancement of technology in defence sector is more than ever to become Atmanirbhar Bharat in true sense of the word. For this, DRDO, Academia and Industry must join hands together. The establishment of Industry Academia Centres of Excellence by DRDO is an apt step in this direction. With the strong R&D expertise and state-of-the-art facilities in flexible electronics, nanomaterials, materials science and engineering, high energy, and bioengineering, IIT Kanpur is well poised to contribute to this collaborative effort. I extend hearty congratulations to the entire team and wish all the success to DIA CoE IIT Kanpur.”
What the New IIT Kanpur and DRDO Facility Will Focus On
The new center will lead targeted research efforts, initially concentrating on specific research and development areas, which are as follows:
- Printing on flexible substrates to build devices and systems based on thin films for strategic applications.
- Advanced nanomaterials contributing fundamentally to material selection and design.
- Accelerated material design and development that reduce the number of actual trial experiments while achieving optimal solutions through high throughput experiments.
- High energy materials focusing on the modeling of high-performance explosives and performance prediction of metalized explosives.
- Bio-engineering to develop technologies for applications ranging from sensing hazardous agents to wound healing.
Dr Subrata Rakshit, Director General Technology Management, DRDO, said: “DIA CoEs established in 15 academic institutes will serve as Centres for R&D to address the future needs of Defence. They will serve to synergize the domain knowledge of DRDO Scientists, the research capacities inherent in our premium academic institutions and the drive of our industries to commercialize emerging home-grown defence technologies. The inauguration and first governing council meeting marks an important milestone in this journey.”
