A workshop on Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) was conducted by Manav Rachna Innovation and Incubation Centre led by Mr. Vikas Sharma, Research Manager-MRIIC and Innovation Coordinator-IIC on 7th December, 2022. He targeted the first year students so that they have a foundational understanding of what technology entails and that development doesn’t end at simply making of projects but continues up until a marketable product has been realised.
Mr. Sharma explained that TRLs were a widely used categorization of the maturity of technology from conception to research, development and deployment. Mr. Sharma guided the students into understanding the different stages of TRLs along with relatable examples along with each category.
The 9 TRLs were explained as follows:
- Basic concept – basic principles observed and reported
- Conceptual design – technology concepts and/or applications formulated
- Preliminary design – analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof of concept
- Detailed design – component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment
- Bench /lab testing – component and/or breadboard validation in relevant environment
- Prototype – system/subsystem model or prototype demonstration in a relevant environment
- Field test – system prototype demonstration in operational environment
- Pre-production – actual system completed and flight qualified through test and demonstration
- Commercialized – actual system proven through successful mission operation
The entire process from ‘Basic technology research’ to ‘Research to prove feasibility’ and ‘Technology development’ was explained to the students and how they should apply it to their projects. ‘Technology demonstration’, ‘System development’ and ‘System test launch operation’ were then defined as the final steps of developing a commercial product.
A need was felt to make the students more aware about these stages of monitoring projects so that they can adapt these methods right from the beginning of their higher education and get an early flavor of the stages involved in prototyping and starting their own start-ups to become successful entrepreneurs