Bandicoots are small to medium-sized marsupials. While they are not rats, they are known for their burrowing behaviour and often make their homes in underground tunnels. It is  because of the similarities between the animal’s burrowing behaviour and the robot’s ability to navigate and enter such hard-to-reach manholes, inspired us to choose ‘Bandicoot’ as a fitting and memorable name.

Manual scavenging is one of the biggest issues plaguing the country. Despite the practice being outlawed in 2013, it still persists and causes several deaths every year. Between 2017 and 2022, 352 people have died doing the manual scavenging job. 

A tragic incident wherein three people lost their lives in a span of 20 minutes while cleaning a manhole inspired a group of youngsters to do something. 

The team of youngsters, Vimal Govind MK, Arun George, Nikhil NP, and Rashid Bin Abdulla Khan then developed ‘Bandicoot’—a remote controlled robot which cleans manholes—replacing sanitation workers and preventing deaths related to manholes.

Developed by Genrobotics, a 2017 robotics company from Kerala—‘Bandicoot’ was also showcased at the recently held World Economic Forum in Davos and generated quite a buzz with a lot of countries showing interest in its technology. This effort was further supported by the Kerala Startup Mission, the state government’s nodal agency for development of startups and entrepreneurship. Later, the company also received support from the National Startup Mission.

Today, the robotic scavenger has already been implemented in 18 states and 3 union territories of India.

Analytics India Magazine spoke to Vimal Govind, one of the co-founders, to understand its impact so far.

How Bandicoot Cleans 

Explaining the functioning of Bandicoot, Govind said that Bandicoot is a 50-kilo, pneumatic-powered, remote-controlled robot that goes down into a manhole, spreads its expandable arms and scoops out the solid and liquid sludge that blocks urban sewers. 

It has a robotic arm that, in a 360-degree motion, can sweep the floor of the manhole to collect the debris in a bucket, cleaning manholes in 20 minutes as opposed to over 2 hours that at least three sanitation workers would take to do the same manually. 

The machine runs through a stand unit which has a console with buttons. The device has a simple user interface and requires only a single user to operate. In addition to this, the machine is dirtproof, waterproof, corrosion resistant, and flash proof—thereby preventing the risks of accidental electric sparks. It can also be easily attached to a vehicle. 

Upon being quizzed about the social impact of Bandicoot, Govind said, “The robot will play a vital role in preventing deaths of manual scavengers”. He also hopes that the product will play a role in changing the term ‘manholes’ to ‘roboholes’ as humans should not be doing this “when we can create an alternative through technology”.

In the context of the challenges encountered by the team during the development of the product, Govind said, “One of the major struggles was capital investments, especially for mass production and the delay in payments from the government”.

The company already has a presence in the UK, UAE, Malaysia and South Korea.

Bandicoot is also exported to other countries that include the ASEAN countries, African countries, UK and there has also been a keen interest from Europe.

Apart from Bandicoot, other innovations by Genrobotics include ‘Willboar 2.0’ and ‘G-Beetle’.

Willboar 2.0 is advanced robotic-rover compatible for cleaning and removing all kinds of sludge from confined space and is meant for industrial confined space cleaning. While G Beetle is an advanced skyscraper facade cleaning robot designed to revolutionise the safety and productivity in the cleaning and maintenance of massive skyscrapers. 

Their efforts have been recognised and promoted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Digital India, Make in India and Swachh Bharat Mission amongst others.