siliconindia | | December 201919HOW UAVS ARE EMPOWERING SCALABILITY IN INDIABy Rahul Singh, Co-founder & CTO, ideaForgendia is home to many challenges - be it in enforcement, develop-ment, economics, agriculture or population. While the challenges within each domain vary, there is one aspect that hinders widespread prob-lem solving, and that is scalability. In a country of 1.2 billion individuals, tradi-tional development & operational models of each individual domain start to fall apart rapidly. India has chosen to tackle its challenges head-on through wide-spread adoption of technology. While we have proven our mettle in using software to tackle such problems (most notably, with the `India Stack'), UAVs are slow-ly bringing cutting edge hardware into the forefront.EnforcementIn a country burgeoning population and porous borders, domestic as well as international security and enforce-ment have been a persistent problem for India. Police & Army personnel simply cannot conduct surveillance op-erations effectively using traditional methods, consider-ing the scale of security threats involved in the region.The Indian Defence Forces, recognizing the potential of UAV technology, were one of the earliest adopters of man-portable multi-rotor UAVs, colloquially referred to as `drones'. ideaForge was the first startup who rec-ognized this need and created the first NETRA UAV in 2007 through a technology partnership with the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO). In the process of developing the NETRA UAV, ideaForge created the then world's lightest Autopilot.Fast-forward to today, the evolving needs of the Indian Defence forces has pushed technology far ahead in capability. While the international community may be unaware of the Indian UAV industry, it is home to category-leading systems globally in terms of performance. Indian OEMs have only recently begun their foray into international markets, where their performance has gathered signifi-cant interest from organisations seeking best-in-class specifications & reliability.When it comes to enforcement, UAVs provide an aerial perspective with a large area coverage which is invaluable in unorganized urban areas, dense for-est regions, porous borders and rural areas with high levels of insurgency. Such technology has helped forces identify illegal opium plantations, spot man-eating tigers, detect bootlegging activities in swamps and has also helped save lives through covert surveillance of insurgents. For some defence forces, UAVs have become force multipliers with some systems flying over 6 times in a day and have scaled their capabilities manifold.For civil operations, India has taken an interesting route. The `Digital Sky' portal, an online platform for automated flying permissions for civil operations was launched on December 1st, 2018. Through this portal, individuals and organisations can apply for flight permis-ideaForge, founded in 2007, is one of the pioneers in research, development, production and operation of compact, cost effective and user friendly Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in India.CXO INSIGHTSIRahul Singh, Co-founder & CTO
< Page 9 | Page 11 >