Expleo, a global engineering and consulting firm, has joined forces with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) to advance safety technologies for urban infrastructure under India’s smart city initiative. Supported through Expleo’s corporate social responsibility program, the collaboration focuses on innovative sensing solutions to improve urban safety.
A key outcome of the partnership is a distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) system designed by Prof. Balaji Srinivasan’s team from IIT Madras’ electrical engineering department. The DAS technology enables real-time detection of gas leaks and security intrusions in residential pipeline networks, enhancing monitoring capabilities for smart city infrastructure.
The prototype, developed by Folium Sensing, a startup incubated at IIT Madras’s Pravartak Technologies Foundation, was demonstrated at the IIT Madras campus to visiting Expleo executives, including COO Unnikrishnan Anilkumar.
Expleo aims to deepen its engagement with IIT Madras by exploring further collaborative projects and offering masterclass sessions for students to gain exposure to industry practices, emerging technologies, and multidisciplinary workflows.
This collaboration highlights the potential of industry-academia partnerships in delivering innovative solutions that enhance urban resilience and safety in rapidly evolving smart city ecosystems.
Author
