New Delhi: Every season, the Indian Premier League (IPL) endeavours to bring in new features and aspects to its coverage of one of the biggest sporting leagues in the world, and undoubtedly the biggest cricket league. This year, the robot dog has become the cynosure of all eyes.
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Named 'Champak', which has resulted in a lawsuit at the Delhi High Court, after a crowdsourcing effort, it made its debut on April 13 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium during the match between Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. The curious looking device is a product of wTVision, a global leader in broadcast technology, in partnership with technical partner Omnicam and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Equipped with a microphone, a speaker, built-in voice recognition module and voice-interaction function, the four-legged robot, shaped like a dog, interacts with players, umpires and spectators during matches. The extent of interactions ranges from handshakes, jumps, making heart gestures and even a Namaste to Rajasthan Royals coach Rahul Dravid.
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The objective behind the robot dog was to "add another flavour or colour to the broadcast," explains Divyajot Ahluwalia, Founder and Director of wTVision Solutions Pvt. Ltd. which is based in Noida.
"We didn't come up and say, okay, we want to make a dog. We were looking for something that is technology driven and something that is not entirely cricket and something that would work in this setup," says Ahluwalia.
"When we came across (it), we saw a few things and a lot of things came together and we got hold of this product. And the moment we saw it, we saw potential around it. Everybody seemed to be happy around it because when was the last time you saw a robot, which is really supposed to be dry and technology driven, come and wave to you and move around you," he elaborates.