Egocentric data collection in Howrah
Fabrication, machining and assembly on working shop floors in Howrah and Liluah, recorded first-person, to your protocol, with consent.
Howrah sits on the west bank of the Hooghly river, directly across from Kolkata, and has long been one of eastern India's busiest industrial districts. Along with neighbouring Liluah, it is home to small and mid-sized factories doing fabrication, machining and assembly every day. For Physical AI teams, that means real industrial tasks in real working conditions, a long way from a lab bench.
Site types
- Factories. Fabrication, machining and assembly on working shop floors in Howrah and Liluah.
- Workshops. Smaller units doing repair, finishing and part preparation.
- Logistics hubs nearby. Warehouses with picking, packing, sorting and dispatch in Dankuni, a short drive north.
Task examples
Task categories are always chosen by you. Examples of what can be captured in Howrah:
- Measuring, marking and cutting stock.
- Operating hand tools and bench tools.
- Fitting and assembling parts.
- Inspecting, sorting and stacking finished parts.
- Packing parts for dispatch.
Footage like this is useful as humanoid robot data for manipulation research and as imitation learning data for industrial policies.
Access and logistics
- Site access. We find suitable sites, agree access with owners and managers, and sign a written site agreement before recording.
- Operators. We recruit, brief, schedule and supervise the people who wear the cameras, briefing them in Bengali, Hindi or English.
- Getting there. Howrah is linked to central Kolkata by road bridges and ferries across the Hooghly, and Howrah station is one of the region's main rail hubs.
- Our base. Our office is in Singur, Hooghly district, in the same region.
- Equipment. You send your cameras or sensors and capture protocol; we set them up and support them on site, including for robot evaluation runs.
Consent and compliance
Every participant gives written informed consent before recording. Every clip carries operator ID, site, task and consent reference. Read more on our compliance page.
Why Howrah for Physical AI data
Industrial tasks are some of the hardest for robots to learn and some of the hardest for data teams to film. Factory owners are understandably cautious about cameras on the shop floor, and most data collectors have no relationships in the area. We handle that part: we agree access with owners and managers, explain exactly what will be recorded, and put it in writing before anyone arrives with a camera.
The result is first-person footage of real industrial work done by people who do it every day, in environments most models have not seen. Field operations here also cost less to run than in Delhi NCR or Bengaluru, and no major data collector covers the region yet, so sites and operators are not already committed elsewhere.
How a Howrah capture runs
- You share your task categories, capture protocol and equipment.
- We match the tasks to suitable sites and sign site agreements.
- We recruit and brief operators, and collect written informed consent.
- Operators record under supervision; every clip gets frame checks and metadata.
- Approved clips are delivered by secure upload with an audit trail.
Who Howrah suits
Howrah is a good fit for teams training industrial manipulation: tool use, part handling, fitting and assembly, inspection and packing. If your model will one day work on a factory floor, this is footage of the work it will be asked to do, recorded where that work actually happens rather than staged on a lab bench.
Start in Howrah
The 50–100 hour pilot runs in Kolkata and Howrah. You pick the tasks, send equipment and guidelines, and we deliver within 2 weeks. See also Kolkata and our egocentric data collection service.