How Coratia Technologies Is Protecting Undersea Data Highways With Marine Robots

SUMMARY

• Coratia Technologies builds made-in-India robots for inspection of underwater infrastructure as well as defence and surveillance use cases
• The company, which has raised ₹22 Cr in capital to date, has developed four products and bagged a high-profile ₹66 Cr contract to supply its assets to the Indian Navy
• As the government has made indigenisation of defence tech a strategic priority amid geopolitical volatility, Croatia’s robots aim to be a critical layer supporting the protection of Indian waters

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Can machines come to the rescue when mankind faces a threat to its digital lifeline?  

Odisha-based Coratia Technologies is working precisely on this. “We deploy our robots in the ocean to carry out surveys, collect samples, and do the pre-emptive remote sensing to ward off any potential threat,” cofounder and chief executive Debendra Pradhan claimed.    

Coratia’s work attained significance in the wake of Iran threatening to blow up the undersea cable lines running deep down the Strait of Hormuz. The war in West Asia that flared up late in February has veered the global attention to the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. 

While a fifth of the global crude oil and natural gas shipments pass through the Strait, several fibre-optic cables are laid out on its seabed, connecting India and Southeast Asia to Europe through the Gulf states and Egypt.

Subsea cables carry around 99% of global internet traffic, enabling critical services such as financial transactions, cloud computing and government communications. For India, the undersea network in the Strait of Hormuz is vital for its internet connectivity. Any damage, whether it is caused by a deliberate attack or a careless fishing trawler, could mean internet slowdowns and outages in critical services, leading to major economic repercussions. 

Yet, India’s own cable-repair capabilities remain weak, pointed out Pradhan. That’s one of the problems that Coratia Technologies aims to fix with its indigenous robots carrying out inspection of underwater infrastructure. Founded in 2021 by Debendra Pradhan and Biswajit Swain, the company caught attention in its appearance in Shark Tank India Season 3. 

The deeptech startup has so far raised ₹22 Cr from investors like Piper Serica Angel Fund, MGF Kavachh and Pontaq Ventures. It also received support in the form of grants from various government bodies. Under the Ministry of Defence’s iDEX scheme, it bagged a high-profile ₹66 Cr contract to supply its robots to the Indian Navy. 

“We provide underwater infrastructure inspections of assets like bridges, dams, boats, docks, pipelines, cables, as well as underwater salvage and defence use cases like assessing threats. These robots can perform tasks beyond the capabilities of a human diver,” Pradhan said. 

The deepening crisis in West Asia and the recent threat to the undersea cables have not only stressed on the need for homegrown technology to protect the undersea infrastructure, but also strengthened the value proposition for companies like Coratia, which races with rivals like Planys Technologies and EyeROV on India’s $108.86 Mn undersea robotics turf that’s growing at 18.27% to reach $309.60 Mn by 2032. 

A Tech For The Deep Blue Sea

Coratia Technologies was cradled at NIT Rourkela, the alma mater of its two founders, who graduated in mechanical engineering in 2017. Pradhan and Swain had teamed up to work on an underwater robotics research project at the institute. 

“There was an open challenge for college students given by the Ministry of Earth Science, calling on young talents to work on problem statements pre-decided by the government. In our case, the problem statement was for engineering students to build robots that autonomously navigate underwater for a certain distance, using computer vision and remote sensing to avoid obstacles, and then fire a projectile to hit a target,” Pradhan recounted. 

“The novelty factor drew us in. Neither the government nor any private body had organised any such challenge relating to underwater robotics before. Back then, you would rarely find research in this space even at top engineering institutes.” 

The duo came first nationally and went on to participate in the even more rigorous Singapore Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Challenge the next year, where they ranked second. “I take pride in saying that we fought in an open competition against the best of the best from India and the world. The problem statements in these challenges were even harder than what we encounter in the real world,” he said. 

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