IIT Delhi and Headquarters Maintenance (HQ) Command, Indian Air Force, Nagpur, have signed an MoU to collaborate on advancing innovative technologies for aviation textiles focusing on parachutes and other safety equipment.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and HQ Maintenance will cooperate, collaborate and promote research and development in areas of obsolescence management, self-reliance, upgradations and digitisation through indigenisation in the field of aviation-grade textiles.

According to Group Captain Prashant Pathak, Commanding Officer 16 BRD, AF, some of the areas of interest for collaboration include raw material selection for various parachutes and safety equipment.

"Development of modern technologies and equipment for technical textile or fabric testing and latest standards available for incorporation into product designs related to parachute and safety equipment, implementing AI and Robotics or imaging technologies for quality acceptance checks of textile, fabric raw material or finished products are also among the areas of collaboration," Pathak said.

"Innovating Machine Learning-based Imaging Technology of finished products such as pilot parachute, brake parachute or cargo parachute canopies, associated harness and crew restraint systems, etc. received from the field units for repair, design and development, reliability studies, simulation studies, life extension studies of parachutes and associated accessories will also be part of the collaboration," he added.

Rajendra Singh, Associate Dean, IIT Delhi, emphasised the importance of this partnership in addressing the Indian defence sector's growing demand for indigenisation.

"There is potential to leverage IIT Delhi's advanced research and IAF's practical expertise to develop innovative solutions for a wide range of aviation-grade textile products," he said.

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