SWAMN is developing autonomous environmental systems that detect and collect floating plastic waste from water bodies — uniting AI-assisted monitoring, embedded engineering, and sustainable design.
Every minute, the equivalent of a truckload of plastic enters our oceans. Marine ecosystems, biodiversity, and the water systems that sustain life are being silently degraded — and the scale demands intelligent, scalable response.
Metric tonnes of plastic enter our oceans every year.
Marine species threatened by plastic pollution.
Of ocean surface contains traces of plastic debris.
Fish caught for human consumption contains microplastics.
SWAMN is the Autonomous Marine Waste Aggregation and Retrieval Ecosystem — a specialised team of Aggregation Bots, self-sealing Containment Pods, and Retrieval Bots that work in coordination across rivers, harbours, urban lakes and flood-affected zones. Detection, containment and transport are split into separate roles so each unit stays lean and the fleet can operate 12-hour shifts.
SWAMN is not a single robot — it is a team. Detection, containment and transport are split across three specialised roles that work alongside each other, enabling continuous 12-hour operation without ever stopping to ferry waste back to shore.
An AI-powered surface vessel that patrols autonomously, identifies floating debris in real time, and deploys a U-shaped containment boom (50–60 m wide) from its rear chamber. It never carries waste — it herds, seals, and moves on.
A buoyant U-shaped boom with a 0.5 m submerged skirt and no bottom — minimising drag and marine-life entanglement. High-strength neodymium magnets close the loop automatically once fill threshold is reached, turning it into a GPS-broadcasting floating pod.
A solar-powered, catamaran-inspired vessel built purely for endurance towing. It homes in on a sealed pod's GPS beacon, docks via magnetic connectors, and tows it to the nearest recovery station — while Aggregation Bots keep cleaning, uninterrupted.
A single elegant loop powers every cleanup cycle — designed for reliability, efficiency, and uninterrupted environmental operation.
Continuous live visual monitoring of the surface.
Intelligent classification isolates plastic from noise.
Coordinated movement converges toward the target.
Surface mechanism gathers the floating waste.
Autonomous docking for offload and recharge.
Six continuous stages that run quietly in the background — cleaning a waterway while the city around it sleeps, wakes, or goes about its day.
Aggregation Bots autonomously patrol assigned zones while onboard AI analyses live video and sensor data to locate elevated debris density.
On detecting a hotspot, the bot deploys its U-shaped boom from the rear chamber, expanding 50–60 m wide across the surface.
Moving forward at low speed, the vessel uses hydrodynamic flow to passively funnel floating debris into the containment zone — no suction, no conveyors.
Once fill level is reached, neodymium magnets at both ends connect automatically, sealing the boom into a self-contained floating pod.
The sealed pod is released and broadcasts its GPS position. The Aggregation Bot deploys a fresh boom and immediately resumes cleanup.
A Retrieval Bot homes in on the pod's beacon, docks via magnetic connectors, and tows it to the nearest shore recovery or recycling station.
Environmental projects fail for two reasons: they run out of money, or nobody wants to pay for them. SWAMN is engineered with both in mind — role separation drops unit cost, and what comes out of the water funds keeping it clean. Every step of the workflow is also a job for a local community member.
Becomes rPET pellets for textile fibre and new packaging — ₹8,000–15,000 per tonne.
Recycled into granules for pipes, buckets and furniture — ₹6,000–12,000 per tonne.
Converted into activated carbon for water filters and charcoal briquettes — ₹20,000–40,000 per tonne.
Marigold and rose waste turned into natural dyes and vermicompost for organic farming.
Anaerobic digestion produces biogas; remaining compost feeds urban farms.
Operators, sorters, recyclers and technicians — trainable in weeks, paid from the value the river itself produces.
Direct reduction of floating plastic to protect aquatic biodiversity and food chains.
Harbour and urban-lake cleanup supports liveable, healthy city environments.
Removing decomposing waste cuts methane emissions from aquatic environments.
Scalable autonomous infrastructure for national waterway management.
Recovered PET and HDPE feed back into a circular recycling economy.
Role separation keeps every unit lean — the pods need no power at all, which is where most of the cost savings come from.
SWAMN wasn't originally designed with algae in mind — but the core collection mechanism is already most of the way there. A few targeted upgrades turn the fleet into a bloom-harvesting platform without a new vehicle.
Dissolved-oxygen collapse and fish kills. Cyanotoxins lethal to livestock and dangerous in drinking water. Sunlight blocked from submerged plants. Methane and CO₂ from decomposing mats. Tourism, fisheries and waterfront livelihoods all degraded.
Standard skirt replaced with 0.5–1 mm fine-mesh, adjustable to 0.3–0.8 m depth to match bloom layer thickness — captures algae biomass while letting water drain.
Optical sensors trained on algae spectral signatures distinguish toxic cyanobacteria from benign algae and aquatic plants, enabling species-specific targeting.
Enclosed pod with mesh floor and airtight cover; HDPE-lined interior resists cyanotoxin leaching during transit to shore.
AI maps bloom density and extent in real time, building heatmaps that direct fleet routing for maximum removal per kWh.
Onboard AI classifies bloom toxicity before collection. Pods arrive tagged hazardous or safe. Workers handling cyanobacteria use PPE and trained protocols. Every batch of digester effluent is pH-tested before going anywhere near farmland.
Every engineering project has problems it has not fully solved, and SWAMN is no different. Here are the known risks and the design choices being built to address them.
Boom twist, tangle or asymmetric expansion in rough water
Anti-twist spool systems; segmented flexible boom design
Neodymium magnets misaligning under cross-currents
Hybrid sealing — magnet plus mechanical latch backup; wave-damped hull
Skirt entanglement risk for aquatic fauna
Open-bottom skirt; AI-based obstacle detection with automated abort
Solar output insufficient for round-the-clock operation
High-capacity battery buffers; reduced-function low-power mode
Loss of coordination signal between units
LoRa long-range mesh with store-and-forward; autonomous fallback patrol
Rishi, Adarsh and Manan testing the prototype and surveying river conditions across pilot sites.
Each phase builds directly on validated results from the previous. Timelines measured from current prototype state (May 2026).
Validated, recognized, and supported by India's leading innovation ecosystems.
Selected among 1.5 lakh student innovations at IIT Guwahati
Registered participant for IIT Delhi innovation competition
INSPIRE Awards — District Level Recognition
Self-initiated student innovation — independently designed and built
Autonomous cleanup prototype successfully demonstrated
A young team of innovators building the next generation of autonomous environmental systems.
Leads the technical vision of SWAMN — designs the autonomous bot and docking model, and drives AI, embedded systems, and end-to-end engineering.
rishisingh@swamn.comBuilds and wires the electronics behind the bot — power, sensors, and control boards — handles the mechanical assembly, and designs and maintains the SWAMN website.
Shapes SWAMN's visual identity, social presence, and digital communications — building a strong, premium identity for the initiative.
Brings the mechanical and electronic sides together during build and testing, and keeps every design decision, test run, and result properly documented for the team.
Coordinates day-to-day operations and people management at SWAMN — ensuring smooth collaboration, clear ownership, and steady progress across every workstream.
Owns SWAMN's pitch end-to-end — shapes the narrative, builds the deck, and delivers it. Translates complex engineering and real-world impact into a clear, persuasive story that resonates with judges, partners, and investors.
Leads people operations at SWAMN — onboarding, team coordination, and culture. Keeps the team aligned, motivated, and moving in sync, ensuring every member has the clarity and support they need to do their best work.
The same architecture extends well beyond plastic. Each direction below is a natural adaptation of the deployable boom, the autonomous closure mechanism, and the floating-pod logistics model.
The containment pod mechanism can be adapted with absorbent boom materials for oil and chemical spill response in coastal waters.
Modified skirt depth and AI detection models enable targeted removal of surface algal blooms in freshwater lakes.
Future bot variants may combine surface collection with shallow underwater debris retrieval arms.
Directly applicable to river systems and coastal zones across South & Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Sensor arrays on deployed units can monitor water quality, temperature, pH and microplastic density — feeding live data to research databases.
SWAMN is building intelligent systems for cleaner, smarter, and more sustainable aquatic ecosystems. The mission is open — collaborators welcome.
Quick answers about SWAMN, the team, and how to get involved.