Planys Technologies: Indian Underwater Robots Inspecting Dams, Ships, Ports and Pipelines

Some of India’s most important infrastructure lies where engineers cannot easily see it.

The foundations of bridges stand below muddy rivers. Dam gates, tunnels and spillways remain submerged for years. Port structures face continuous corrosion, marine growth and wave action. Refineries and power plants depend on water-filled tanks, cooling channels and intake pipelines that are difficult to empty for inspection.

Traditionally, much of this work has depended on trained commercial divers. Human divers remain essential for many underwater operations, but depth, currents, poor visibility, contaminated water, confined spaces and structural instability can make inspections dangerous or impractical.

Chennai-based Planys Technologies is developing an Indian alternative built around underwater robotics.

Incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Planys designs remotely operated vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, crawler systems, marine sensors and digital inspection tools. These machines enter submerged spaces, record structural conditions, conduct non-destructive testing and convert the collected information into digital reports that engineers can use for maintenance decisions.

The company represents an unusual form of Make in India engineering: robots created not primarily for ocean exploration, but for examining the hidden physical condition of infrastructure beneath water.

From IIT Madras Student Projects to a Robotics Company

The origins of Planys can be traced to underwater-robotics projects undertaken by IIT Madras students beginning around 2012.

Mechanical-engineering students Tanuj Jhunjhunwala, Vineet Upadhyay and Rakesh Sirikonda built underwater robots through the institute’s tinkering and research environment. Their work brought them into contact with IIT Madras specialists studying non-destructive evaluation of dams, ports and other structures.

The students recognised that infrastructure owners faced a practical problem. They needed reliable information about submerged assets, yet underwater inspection frequently depended on divers, manually recorded observations and lengthy video footage that was difficult to analyse.

In June 2015, the students joined IIT Madras faculty members Prabhu Rajagopal and Krishnan Balasubramaniam to establish Planys Technologies. The company combined three areas of expertise:

• Marine robotics
• Non-destructive testing
• Digital inspection analytics

Planys now describes itself as having more than a decade of experience and over 20,000 operational hours across its underwater platforms. Its systems are designed and developed in India for sectors including maritime infrastructure, dams, bridges, energy facilities and industrial process plants.

What Is a Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle?

A remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, is an unmanned submersible controlled by an operator at the surface.

The vehicle is normally connected to a surface station through a tether. This cable may transmit power, control commands, live video and sensor data. The operator guides the machine using cameras, depth readings, sonar and other instruments.

Unlike a diver, an electrically powered ROV does not need breathing gas and is unaffected by decompression limits. It can remain underwater for extended periods as long as power, communications and operating conditions permit.

A typical inspection ROV contains:

• Electrically driven thrusters
• Pressure-resistant electronic housings
• Underwater cameras
• High-intensity lights
• Depth and orientation sensors
• Sonar for low-visibility navigation
• A tether and surface-control station
• Mounting points for inspection instruments

The robot may also carry cleaning tools, laser measurement systems, ultrasonic probes, corrosion sensors or water-quality equipment.

ROVs are especially useful when an asset is too deep, too confined, too contaminated or too structurally uncertain for safe human entry.

ROV Orca: Inspection in Confined and Hazardous Spaces

Planys’ Orca platform is designed for confined locations such as dams, tanks and pipelines.

The company states that Orca carries dual high-definition cameras with adjustable illumination for muddy and turbid conditions. Its modular payload section can accommodate equipment weighing up to approximately ten kilograms.

The machine can be fitted for steel and concrete non-destructive testing, sonar imaging and live video inspection. Its standard configuration is rated for operations down to 120 metres, with the company offering an extension toward 300 metres for specific requirements.

Orca’s compact form allows it to enter spaces where larger work-class underwater vehicles would be impractical. Potential inspection locations include:

• Dam galleries and gate areas
• Water-storage tanks
• Penstocks and submerged tunnels
• Cooling-water systems
• Intake and outfall structures
• Flooded industrial compartments
• Confined sections of pipelines

Planys reports that Orca-family deployments have accumulated thousands of operating hours in industrial inspection work. These performance and deployment figures are company disclosures and may vary according to the platform configuration.

ROV Beluga: Open-Water Structural Inspection

The Beluga ROV is intended for larger open-water environments such as ports, rivers and bridge foundations.

It carries high-definition cameras, sonar and modular inspection instruments. Planys lists steel testing, concrete testing, live video, defect measurement and digitally geotagged reporting among the platform’s capabilities.

Beluga can be deployed to inspect:

• Port berths and quay walls
• Bridge piers and pile foundations
• Jetties and breakwaters
• Ship hulls
• Riverbeds and seabeds
• Lock gates
• Offshore and near-shore structures

Its increased thrust helps it maintain position against currents and move around exposed structures. This is important because a camera image has limited value when the vehicle is continuously pushed away from the surface being examined.

Beluga is also designed to accept different payloads rather than functioning only as an underwater camera. The same vehicle can be configured for visual inspection, sonar survey, cleaning or structural measurements according to the mission.

Trikhand and Jal Avalokini

Planys has developed additional ROV platforms for specialised inspection and security applications.

Trikhand

The company presents Trikhand as a modular ROV suitable for hazardous-area inspection and mine-countermeasure-related applications. Published specifications list multiple cameras, real-time video, steel inspection equipment, geotagged documentation and variants designed for depths of 100 or 300 metres.

Trikhand also appears within the company’s emerging defence-oriented product portfolio. Publicly available information establishes it as a developed platform, although it does not confirm large-scale induction by an Indian armed service.

Jal Avalokini

Jal Avalokini is designed for bridge, port, ship-hull and search-and-rescue inspection requirements.

The platform can carry multiple cameras, steel and concrete inspection equipment and modular payloads. Planys also lists live artificial-intelligence-based defect recognition among its intended capabilities.

This means that the system is designed not merely to transmit footage, but to assist in identifying possible cracks, corrosion or other irregularities while the inspection is being conducted. The exact level of automated recognition will depend on the operating conditions, sensor quality and training data available for the particular structure.

Seeing Through Muddy and Turbid Water

One of the greatest challenges in underwater inspection is poor visibility.

River water may contain suspended clay, silt and biological material. Industrial tanks can contain sediment. Port water may be affected by pollution, marine growth and continuous vessel activity. A powerful light can sometimes make the problem worse because suspended particles reflect the illumination back toward the camera.

Planys addresses this problem through a combination of:

• Adjustable underwater lighting
• Camera positioning
• Image-enhancement algorithms
• Sonar imaging
• Laser scaling
• Vehicle stabilisation

Sonar sends acoustic energy through the water and measures the returning signal. It can detect walls, structural shapes and obstructions even when an optical camera can see only a short distance.

Camera and sonar information can therefore complement each other. The camera provides visual detail where visibility permits, while sonar helps the operator understand larger shapes and navigate through murky conditions.

In one dam inspection, Planys used its image-enhancement system on footage captured in extremely muddy water, while an echo sounder and other sensors were used to survey the stilling basin.

From Visual Inspection to Non-Destructive Testing

A basic underwater camera can reveal obvious damage, but engineers often need more information than a video image can provide.

A structure may appear intact while corrosion has reduced the thickness of a steel plate. Concrete deterioration may extend beneath the visible surface. Marine growth may conceal pitting, cracks or damaged welds.

Planys integrates its robots with non-destructive testing, commonly abbreviated as NDT. These methods examine a structure without cutting it open or permanently damaging it.

The company lists capabilities including:

• Ultrasonic testing
• Steel-thickness measurement
• Contact and non-contact corrosion assessment
• Concrete ultrasonic pulse-velocity testing
• Laser-based defect measurement
• Two- and three-dimensional sonar surveys
• Bathymetric mapping
• Marine-growth cleaning
• Internal pipeline inspection

An ultrasonic probe sends sound waves into a material. The reflected signal can help determine thickness or reveal internal irregularities. This is useful for examining steel gates, ship hulls, pipes and other metallic structures affected by corrosion.

Concrete testing can help engineers evaluate changes within submerged foundations, dam walls and structural elements. The robot may first clean a limited section before positioning the sensor against the surface.

Integrating the testing instrument with the underwater vehicle allows measurements to be linked to the exact position at which they were taken.

Measuring Defects With Lasers

A photograph can show a crack, but it may not reveal whether the crack is five millimetres or fifty millimetres wide.

Planys uses laser-scaling equipment to provide a known distance within the camera image. The inspection software can compare the defect with the laser reference and estimate its dimensions.

This can be used to measure:

• Cracks
• Areas of concrete loss
• Corrosion patches
• Exposed reinforcement
• Structural deformation
• Open joints
• Damaged coatings

Repeated inspections can then determine whether the defect is stable or growing.

This transforms underwater footage from general visual evidence into information that can support engineering decisions.

Inspecting a Dam at a Depth of 50 Metres

One of Planys’ published case studies involved a dam in southern India.

The inspection covered an emergency gate, two sluice gates, a submerged concrete tunnel and associated service-gate surfaces at depths reaching approximately 50 metres. Water movement, debris and suction caused by suspected leakage created conditions that made diver inspection impractical.

Planys deployed an earlier ROV known as Mike with a high-resolution camera, depth sensor and altimeter.

The company reported identifying more than 75 anomalies, including cracks, debris, damaged grooves, concrete spalling and areas of suction that indicated possible leakage. These observations were placed on digital drawings of the inspected sections and linked to corresponding video evidence.

The case illustrates why underwater robots are valuable for dam safety. The objective is not merely to film the structure, but to identify the location, seriousness and concentration of defects before they contribute to a larger failure.

Examining a Cyclone-Damaged Port Berth

In another case, three cranes collapsed on a port berth in western India during a cyclone. Parts of the damaged machinery penetrated the berth structure.

The area beneath the berth had very low clearance, with available space changing according to the tide. Sending divers into the restricted zone would have exposed them to damaged concrete, unstable debris and entrapment risks.

Planys deployed its Beluga ROV with an upward-facing camera, turbid-water equipment, laser scaling and a depth sensor.

The company reported finding more than 100 major defects, including exposed reinforcement, cracks, concrete spalling and bulging structural elements. The measured defects were mapped onto drawings and presented through the company’s digital dashboard.

The inspection information was then made available to engineers responsible for deciding how to dismantle the collapsed equipment and rehabilitate the berth.

Railway Bridge Foundations Beneath Turbid Water

Bridge foundations are particularly difficult to inspect because currents, tides and muddy water may conceal damage below the surface.

Planys conducted underwater inspections of 39 foundation groups belonging to two railway bridges in western India. Each group contained multiple piles and a pile cap.

The structures were covered with heavy marine growth, while the available inspection window was restricted by tidal movement. Beluga and Orca vehicles were deployed with cameras, depth sensors and turbid-water equipment.

According to the company’s case study, more than 100 anomalies were documented, including cracks, surface deformation, pinholes and corrosion. The footage was enhanced digitally, while the defect locations were placed on drawings and linked with localised video.

Such inspections are important because underwater scour, corrosion and concrete loss can gradually weaken a foundation while remaining invisible from the bridge deck.

Dams, Bridges, Ports and Industrial Plants

Planys has organised its inspection services around four major industrial groups.

Dams

Its systems can examine gates, grooves, reservoir walls, tunnels, penstocks, spillways, plunge pools, trash racks, surge shafts and stilling basins. Sonar and echo-sounding equipment can also estimate reservoir depth and sediment accumulation.

Bridges

Underwater robots can inspect piles, piers, well foundations and culverts. They can also map the riverbed and examine scour—the removal of soil or sediment around a foundation by flowing water.

Ports and terminals

ROVs can inspect jetties, berth structures, quay walls, lock gates, ship hulls, breakwaters and submerged retaining structures. Bathymetric surveys can identify changes in seabed depth or sediment movement.

Process plants

Refineries, power stations, desalination facilities and wastewater plants may contain tanks, sumps, cooling-water channels and intake systems that are difficult to shut down. Compact robots can inspect these submerged spaces while reducing the need for drainage or prolonged plant outages.

Underwater Crawler Systems

Free-swimming ROVs use thrusters to manoeuvre through the water. This provides flexibility, but strong currents and confined geometries can make it difficult to hold a sensor steadily against a structure.

Underwater crawlers are designed to move while maintaining contact with a surface. Depending on the design, they may use wheels, tracks, magnets or suction systems.

A crawler can be useful for:

• Ship-hull inspection
• Tank-wall inspection
• Pipeline examination
• Cleaning marine growth
• Maintaining an ultrasonic probe against steel
• Traversing relatively flat submerged surfaces

Planys includes crawler systems within its indigenous inspection portfolio, although detailed public specifications for its current crawler models remain limited. The crawlers form part of the company’s wider approach of choosing the robotic form according to the structure being inspected rather than attempting to use one vehicle for every environment.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

An autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, differs from a conventional ROV because it can execute a programmed mission without remaining continuously connected to a surface operator through a tether.

An AUV can follow a planned route, collect sensor information and return for data recovery or transmission. Autonomy becomes useful when surveying larger areas or when a tether would restrict movement.

Planys lists two principal autonomous platforms: Svaayatt and Tritanta.

Svaayatt

Svaayatt is a 110-kilogram modular vehicle designed for surveillance, hydrographic surveys, search and rescue, mine countermeasures and acoustic or magnetic sensing.

The company lists autonomous path-following, remote-control and seabed-resident modes. Its published specifications include a rechargeable five-kilowatt-hour battery, mission endurance of up to ten hours for specified ranging operations and depth variants of 100 and 300 metres.

The platform includes a modular payload bay and multiple communication methods for surface and underwater operations.

Tritanta

Tritanta is a smaller vehicle weighing less than 15 kilograms with its payload. It is intended for ecological surveys, surveillance, diver monitoring, expendable missions and swarm-based operations.

Planys states that Tritanta can operate autonomously for up to four hours, carry expandable payloads and run machine-learning or deep-learning algorithms on board. The platform is designed for depths of up to 300 metres.

These figures are manufacturer specifications. Mission endurance and usable depth will depend on payload, speed, currents, communication requirements and operating conditions.

Defence and Maritime-Security Potential

Underwater infrastructure has both economic and national-security importance.

Naval bases, harbours, underwater cables, pipelines and port approaches may require continuous monitoring. Unmanned underwater vehicles can support inspection and surveillance without exposing divers to mines, hostile environments or uncertain objects.

Potential defence applications of Planys’ technologies include:

• Harbour surveillance
• Mine detection and classification
• Underwater search operations
• Ship-hull inspection
• Intelligence and reconnaissance
• Diver monitoring
• Acoustic and magnetic surveys
• Search and rescue
• Seabed observation
• Detection of suspicious submerged objects

The company’s public product pages identify Svaayatt, Tritanta and Trikhand as platforms intended for several defence-oriented roles.

These systems should, however, be distinguished from equipment formally inducted into military service. Public product descriptions establish development capability and intended applications, but they do not by themselves confirm operational deployment or procurement quantities.

The Internet of Underwater Things

Planys is also working on an Internet of Underwater Things, or IoUT, platform.

Instead of sending a robot for every periodic inspection, fixed sensors can remain beneath the surface and continuously collect information. Data can then be transmitted to cloud-based systems for monitoring and analysis.

Planys describes two principal applications.

The first is continuous water-quality monitoring. Underwater sensors can measure parameters such as temperature, conductivity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, ammonia, nitrates and indicators associated with biological or chemical contamination.

The second is bridge-scour monitoring. Sensors placed around submerged foundations can track erosion and provide alerts when riverbed conditions change, particularly during floods and monsoon-driven high-flow events.

ROVs provide detailed mobile inspection, while permanent sensors provide continuing observation. The combination can help infrastructure owners move from occasional inspection toward long-term condition monitoring.

Turning Underwater Footage Into Engineering Intelligence

One of the most important parts of the Planys system remains above the water.

Traditional underwater inspections may produce written notes, several PDF files and hours of unprocessed video. Engineers must then search through the footage to identify where a defect was observed.

Planys has developed the Planys Analytics Dashboard, a digital reporting and asset-management system.

The platform can:

• Geotag inspection findings
• Place defects on structural drawings
• Link each defect to photographs or video
• Quantify and classify anomalies
• Compare inspection results across different years
• Display concentrations of damage as hotspot maps
• Maintain a central history for each asset
• Support trend analysis and maintenance decisions

This digital layer is strategically important. A robot can collect high-quality data, but the inspection has limited value unless the information is organised in a form that engineers, asset managers and regulators can understand.

Historical comparison can reveal whether a crack is expanding, whether corrosion is accelerating or whether a repaired area remains stable.

Why Underwater Robotics Matters for India

India has a long coastline, a large network of ports, thousands of dams, major river bridges, offshore energy installations and rapidly expanding maritime infrastructure.

Much of this infrastructure is ageing or operating under heavier loads than when it was originally constructed. Climate-related flooding, cyclones, sediment movement and rising coastal activity add further stress.

Underwater inspection therefore affects:

• Public safety
• Port availability
• Railway and highway reliability
• Dam management
• Energy security
• Industrial production
• Maritime defence
• Environmental protection

Imported underwater robots can be expensive and may not be optimised for India’s muddy rivers, confined dam tunnels or cost-sensitive inspection requirements.

An indigenous company can adapt platforms around local water conditions, transportation constraints, infrastructure designs and maintenance practices. It can also provide domestic repairs, software modifications, field support and customised payload integration.

A Complete Indian Marine-Robotics Stack

Planys’ significance extends beyond assembling a waterproof camera onto a commercial underwater drone.

Its technology requires expertise in:

• Hydrodynamic vehicle design
• Pressure-resistant enclosures
• Underwater propulsion
• Power electronics
• Waterproof connectors
• Navigation and control
• Sonar integration
• Machine vision
• Ultrasonic testing
• Structural engineering
• Artificial intelligence
• Digital asset management

The company also lists indigenous underwater thrusters as a separate product category. Thrusters are strategically important because they determine how accurately an underwater robot can move, turn and hold position.

Developing these systems creates knowledge that can support ocean science, offshore energy, naval systems, aquaculture, environmental monitoring and deep-sea exploration.

Commercial and Engineering Challenges

Underwater robotics remains one of the most difficult areas of machine engineering.

Water creates drag, pressure and corrosion. Radio signals do not travel efficiently through it, while satellite navigation is unavailable below the surface. Cameras lose effectiveness in muddy water, and tethers can become caught around structures.

Robots must also survive accidental collisions, saltwater exposure and repeated pressure cycles.

Commercial challenges include:

• Demonstrating reliability over long deployments
• Maintaining precise control in strong currents
• Producing sensors and components at competitive cost
• Obtaining marine and industrial certifications
• Training skilled ROV pilots
• Scaling manufacturing
• Establishing service networks near customer locations
• Converting inspection data into accepted engineering evidence
• Competing with established international underwater-robotics firms

A successful inspection company must understand both robotics and the structure being inspected. High-quality footage alone cannot determine whether a crack is dangerous. Structural engineers and NDT specialists must interpret the finding within the context of the complete asset.

This combination of robotics and engineering analysis is central to Planys’ business model.

Building Visibility Beneath the Surface

Underwater infrastructure often receives attention only after a visible failure, leakage or operational disruption.

Planys Technologies is attempting to change this approach by making submerged assets measurable and digitally visible.

Its remotely operated vehicles can enter confined or hazardous areas. Autonomous vehicles can survey larger underwater zones. Crawlers can hold inspection equipment against surfaces. Sonar and cameras reveal hidden structures, while NDT instruments assess materials. The collected information is then organised within a digital platform for engineering analysis.

The company’s work demonstrates that Make in India can extend into environments far beyond factory floors and laboratories.

It can operate beneath dam reservoirs, underneath port berths, around bridge foundations and inside industrial water systems—places where the condition of critical infrastructure has traditionally remained difficult to observe.

Conclusion

Planys Technologies has developed one of India’s most distinctive marine-robotics platforms.

Emerging from IIT Madras student research, the company has combined underwater vehicle engineering with non-destructive testing and digital analytics. Its ROVs examine dams, bridges, ports, ships, tanks and industrial water systems, while its autonomous platforms are being developed for survey, surveillance, environmental and defence applications.

The importance of these machines lies in more than replacing a diver.

They allow inspections to reach deeper, remain underwater longer, enter more dangerous locations and produce repeatable digital records. Sensors can measure corrosion, concrete condition, water depth and structural defects, while software converts the findings into maps and maintenance histories.

As India expands its ports, offshore industries, bridges, dams and maritime-security infrastructure, the ability to inspect what lies below water will become increasingly important.

Planys is helping build that capability in India—one robot, one sensor and one submerged structure at a time.

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Reference

1. Planys Technologies — company history, founding team and engineering focus.
2. IIT Madras Shaastra — Planys founding story and IIT Madras origins.
3. IIT Madras — marine robotics, NDT and digital inspection capabilities.
4. Planys Technologies — current ROV platforms and published specifications.
5. Planys Technologies — AUV Svaayatt and Tritanta specifications.
6. Planys Technologies — products and underwater inspection capabilities.
7. Planys Technologies — dam-safety inspection case study.
8. Planys Technologies — cyclone-damaged berth inspection case study.
9. Planys Technologies — railway-bridge pile inspection case study.
10. Planys Technologies — Internet of Underwater Things.
11. Planys Technologies — digital reporting and asset-analysis platform.
12. IIT Madras — Planys and India’s emerging blue-economy technologies.

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