Mangalore: 'Mugila Kannu' - An 'Eye in the Sky' at International Kite Fest
Prakash Samaga
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore
Mangalore, Jan 22: While everyone was enthusiastically flying their kites in the open sky at Panambur beach during the International Kite Festival on Saturday January 21, Prathviraj Umesh was standing with a TFT-monitored remote controller and was controlling a camera attached to a kite.
An assistant professor from the applied mechanics and hydraulics department in NITK, Surathkal, he prepared this unique device which he named ‘Mugila Kannu’ (meaning ‘eye in the sky’) which gives a bird's eye view of the beach on his monitor connected through a wireless signal.
It is for the first time in the country that this sort of an aerial camera connected to a kite has been produced. Prathviraj was helped by project heads Sanjay and Mohan as well as Janardhan of ‘Team Mangalore’. There are two devices—one to receive the signals and another to transmit the signals—and the picture is displayed on the TFT screen in the ‘Mugila Kannu’.
The device has two different radio signals—one to transmit the image or video taken by the camera and another to pan and tilt the camera for a customized image. The camera fixed in the kite has a resolution of 12 mega pixels which is good enough to give a commanding view from the top. The frequency of the camera is 2.4 GHZ and for video recording it is 900 MHZ. It has a 360 degree view to capture the image.
Asked about what influenced him in making this unique device, he said that in the last international kite festival held here, a kite flyer named Nicolas from France had brought such a device and this made him create his own such apparatus to enjoy the kite flying from up in the sky.
Prathviraj and his team men took one year to make this device as they did it during their free time. The expenditure was about Rs 75,000 as some of the equipment used is imported. He also has plans to make it available for any security purposes if demanded by the defense department. Prathviraj, however, adds that the cost of each device will come down with mass production and he would make it for a reasonable price as it is not his business but only a hobby.