IO, Surabaya – Five students of the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS), Surabaya, won the Gold Medal and Best Impact Award at the 2020 Indonesia Inventors Day (IID), in the category of International World Invention and Technology Expo (WINTEX) which was held online for three days last week. An innovative work called Humanless Underwater Sensor Technology (HUST) 2.0, won two awards at once: Gold Medal and Best Impact Award.
The team was led by Wildan Muhammad Mursyid (Material Engineering 2017), with members Ghifari Hanif Mustofa (Mechanical Engineering 2017), Ahmad Fahmi Prakoso (Material Engineering 2018), Edo Danilyan (Biology 2018), and Aldiansyah Wahfiudin (Material Engineering 2018). HUST 2.0. is an underwater sensor technology innovation that is meant to be used in Indonesian border waters. This tool turns out to be a development of the first version of HUST which also won a Gold Medal at the 2020 World Invention and Competition Exhibition (WICE).
In a release received by the Independent Observer, Friday (4/12/2020), Wildan said, in this second generation, HUST has an additional function, namely, as a power generator. It does not only function as an illegal fishing boat detector and an earthquake detection system like the first version, but in this latest version, HUST 2.0 also utilizes ocean currents as alternative energy to produce electrical energy.
Starting from the problem of coastal communities who are still complaining about the availability of electricity in their environment, it mixes the solutions for pre-existing problems with new problems, with the same tool. “With this additional feature in HUST 2.0, the electricity needs of people in coastal areas can be met,” said the student from Klaten.
Not as smooth as it seems: the development of HUST 2.0 also experienced several obstacles, one of which was the electricity distribution line system to coastal areas which must be under the sea, traveling a long-distance so that energy loss is possible. “These obstacles make us still need to research and develop this tool so that the ocean current power plant concept can be applied optimally,” he said.
Wildan and his team decided to resubmit their work to the WINTEX event because Indonesia does not yet have a technology development tool that combines the three functions: underwater sensors, marine disaster detection, and ocean current power plants. “We are sure that this innovation can be accepted by the wider community and also the jury so that it can win again.”
Against 345 teams from 15 countries, HUST 2.0 appeared with a working mechanism that was almost the same as before. This similarity can be seen from the earthquake sensors to detect seabed vibrations, metal sensors to detect approaching ships, and ID sensors to detect Transmitter ID, to prevent illegal fishing. For power generation, HUST 2.0 uses the Gorlov Helical Turbine concept which utilizes ocean currents to rotate the turbine blades. The electrical energy generated is used to meet the energy needs of HUST 2.0 and electricity needs in coastal areas.
This alumnus of State High School 1 in Sukoharjo hopes that HUST 2.0 can be realized so that it can help people in coastal areas. The team also wants to bring this innovative work to other competitions to further strengthen its usefulness. “We will continue to carry out research and development for this tool,” he added. (est)