Smart India Hackathon 2025
Coast Scan: A decentralized maritime surveillance system developed under 36 hours.
Government Problem Statement
The Ministry of Defence sought a low-cost, scalable solution to monitor small fishing vessels that often go undetected by coastal radar, posing security risks.
System Architecture
We designed a network of solar-powered "Smart Buoys." Each buoy operates autonomously:
1. Visual AI: An onboard camera feeds images to a quantized MobileNet model running
on a Raspberry Pi.
2. Mesh Network: Buoys communicate with each other and a base station using LoRa
(Long Range) radio, which requires no cellular infrastructure.
Team Engineering
As Team Lead, I managed the integration of hardware and software. We split into two sub-teams:
- Hardware: Focused on waterproofing and power management.
- Software: Focused on optimizing the inference model to run at 15 FPS on limited
compute.
Why It Won
The judges cited our "pragmatic approach to connectivity." While other teams relied on 5G (which is non-existent 10km offshore), our use of LoRa demonstrated a deep understanding of the deployment environment.
Learnings
Winning SIH taught me that the best engineering solution isn't always the most high-tech one—it's the one that actually works in the field constraints. It was a masterclass in compromise and optimization.