Nearly two years after sanitation worker Joy lost his life while cleaning the waste-filled Amayizhanchan canal, the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation has commissioned an AI-powered robotic canal-cleaning system at the same site, marking a major step towards eliminating hazardous manual work.

The system, named G-Spider, was inaugurated on Wednesday by Local Self-Governments Minister M B Rajesh at a function chaired by Mayor V V Rajesh. The launch comes just months ahead of the second death anniversary of Joy.

The initiative, aimed at phasing out manual scavenging and improving worker safety, is a collaborative effort between the city corporation and Technopark-based Genrobotic Innovations, the company behind the Bandicoot robotic scavenger.

Under the agreement, Genrobotics will fully fund the deployment of the robotic system, while the corporation will oversee its operations and maintenance.

Addressing the gathering, the minister said Genrobotics had demonstrated how innovation could be converted into socially impactful entrepreneurship. He also announced that one of the seven compressed biogas (CBG) plants planned in the state for solid waste management would be set up in Thiruvananthapuram.

Rajesh added that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan would inaugurate the ₹100-crore CBG plant at Brahmapuram in Kochi on February 28, noting that 90 per cent of the nine lakh metric tonnes of accumulated waste there had already been cleared. He said work on the Palakkad plant would be completed in February, construction was progressing in Thrissur, and a plant at Changanassery was under consideration. He also said four sanitary plants would be inaugurated next week.

Mayor V V Rajesh reiterated the corporation’s focus on adopting advanced technologies for waste management and praised the Genrobotics team, stating that the civic body would explore wider use of the company’s solutions.

Officials said repeated manual cleaning in the area had resulted in serious safety risks, including Joy’s death in 2024. In response, the corporation decided to deploy robotic cleaning systems in line with the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, with the objective of completely eliminating human entry into dangerous canal-cleaning work.

Deputy Mayor Asha Nath G S, Divisional Railway Manager Divyakant Chandrakar, and Genrobotic Innovations CEO and co-founder Vimal Govind M K were among those present.

How does G-Spide work?
The G-Spider system is designed to function in challenging and high-risk canal environments without human involvement. Built on a cable-driven parallel robotics framework with AI-enabled vision and sensor technologies, it can accurately detect, assess and remove waste.

Using machine vision and intelligent sensors, the system identifies waste in real time and adapts to different waste materials, water flow conditions and structural challenges within canals. Guided by AI-based vision algorithms, its robotic arm carries out precise waste removal using a five-degrees-of-freedom mechanism that ensures stable gripping and accurate positioning.

The removed waste is automatically transferred to designated collection vehicles, enabling a completely hands-free canal-cleaning process from detection to final disposal, officials added.