The novel coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc around the globe. It all began as any other virus, and in the blink of an eye became a dreadful invisible enemy causing tens of thousands of deaths and worldwide lockdowns disrupting daily lives and the economy. Despite having no end at sight, the pandemic has prompted the need for development and extensive deployment of tools powered by emerging technologies such as AI, robotics, IoT, and drones.

Garuda Aerospace, a start-up based out of Chennai, has been relentlessly working with the Tamil Nadu government to provide digital surveillance during the COVID lockdown. INDIAai’s Anjali Pathak spoke to Vimal Raj, CEO of Garuda Aerospace, to understand how this company is meeting the current demand and how drones can act as more of a solution than a service.

What motivated you to join the aerospace industry?

I am an alumnus from Madras Institute of Technology, Chennai and hence share my alma mater with great minds like Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. He was a significant inspiration, and therefore I decided to pursue my PG in Avionics. When I saw the way, drones were disrupting the industry; I thought it could be the next big thing and in 2011, I started working on DRDO’s and NAL’s UAV projects at MIT, Chennai. In 2012, I joined team Dhaksha in MIT as a UAS Engineer. All this time, I spent with UAVs, they gripped and fascinated me more by each passing day, and that’s when I decided to join Garuda in 2015.

All great ideas have an origin story, what is Garuda’s? 

Before joining this business in 2015, we contemplated on how drones can add value to different segments of various industries, especially the government. We didn’t want to be just another drone manufacturing company; we wanted to be a solution rendering company. With that goal in mind, we started developing solutions through drones. 

In 2016, we bagged our first assignment with the Tamil Nadu Forest Department to help them solve several of their issues. We supplied them drones for surveillance of wildlife poaching and illegal activities in the forest area and curated a solution for them to deal with man-animal conflicts. One of the problems that we helped them solve was to steer elephants away from farmlands and villages using speakers on our drones to amplify the buzzing sounds that drones create when operational, which was very effective in steering away elephants. This solution was later also used to avoid elephant deaths on rail tracks as elephants have been known to be movers who cross rail tracks and many-a-times trains would run them over. 

We have also worked with the Tamil Nadu Police Department on a Naxalite operation. Currently, we are focusing on the agriculture sector, employing our pesticides’ spraying drones. With less human resources, the demand for drones in the agriculture sector has been increasing. So, we created a drone that can carry 10L of pesticide and can cover an acre of land in less than 10 mins. It sprays the fertilisers with no human intervention, which implicitly ensures farmers’ safety.

In these unprecedented times, Garuda is doing some great work in association with the government in the area of sanitation. Please tell us more about this initiative. 

We are currently using the same drones to deal with COVID-19 situation that we have been using in the agricultural industry. The goal is to make sure that the sanitation workers are not exposed to the virus and at the same time, help hospitals keep their surroundings adequately sanitised. Hence, we are using these drones to disinfect the hospitals and public gathering places. 

Currently, we are using these machines in two of the leading hospitals in Chennai where the COVID-19 cases have surfaced in large numbers, which are Rajiv Gandhi Convent Hospital and Kilpauk Medical College. So, to make it simpler to understand, we are ‘digital janitors’.

We are also working with the electricity board of Tamil Nadu. Now with everyone working from home, the continued supply of electricity is of utmost importance. This department, like healthcare, is working around the clock, and the government wanted to make sure that the workers coming to work every day stay safe; hence these stations are being sanitised daily. Currently, we are giving this sanitation service to 25 locations in and around Chennai that includes 20 hospitals and around 300 powerplants and substations.

Are there plans to employ drone technology in any other way to fight COVID-19?

In Chennai, some people are still taking this situation very lightly. Garuda, in association with the Police Department, is using these drones for surveillance purposes to monitor the people who are loitering freely in a specific location for a long time.

We are also manufacturing the same loudspeaker drones for the Police Department to make announcements, that we used for man-animal conflict; hence, eliminating the need to visit each street to make these announcements physically. Therefore, given the circumstances, we are helping the police in enforcing the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” agenda.

Given the nature of the work you do and the circumstances that we are going through, you must be approached by many state governments. Has the technology matured to be able to handle such demand?

Yes, we have been getting work orders from Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand recently. In Bangalore, there’s a massive requirement of our drones for sanitisation purposes, and in Tamil Nadu itself we are working with two departments simultaneously, so the demand here in Tamil Nadu itself is exceptionally high.

Yes, our technology is ready to be deployed in any place at any given point in time, excluding the travel time, which is a day or two. Now that there is only one mode of transportation which is the road, that’s getting a little challenging. But as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures; hence the Chattisgarh govt has officially given in writing to use a chartered flight from Chennai to Chattisgarh for the orders if required. 

How far and how high can the drones that you manufacture fly?

The ones that we are presently using are restricted to 30 meters. We have to follow specific rules where the restriction is up to 120 feet altitude, but the radio signals can go for 1 km vertically and 2.5 km horizontally. For COVID- 19, we have restricted the height to 15 metres.

The past scepticism of Indian authorities in adopting drone technology is barely a secret. Do you think this COVID-19 situation is going to change the perception of government in employing the technology?

Yes, before COVID-19, drone industry was quite suppressed in India. The growth of the drone industry was not prominent in terms of experimentation, operations and development in comparison to other countries. The laws in the country don’t make things any simpler either. We require multiple licenses because flying a drone in India is almost like flying an aircraft. Before every project, we take permission from 7 departments, and that takes almost 5-6 months, depending on the drone model and the project. These procedures are way more convenient in countries like the US, where the government provides opportunities to start-ups to experiment with this technology. China has made remarkable use of its 600 drones to fight COVID. India has that degree of the potential provided there were some relaxations in the regulations of the operation of drones.

Because of COVID implications, drones are playing a significant role in assisting the state; in fact, it is an integral part of our fight against the pandemic. Three weeks back, police had never let me fly a drone; but now, considering the circumstance, every department wants to employ this technology. The way drones have worked as a partner to humanity during this pandemic, has made all of us understand the true potential and importance of drones. I believe that after all this is over, the government will have some relaxation for the drone’s manufacturers like us.

What are the limitations of this technology?

With drones, the greatest challenge is the availability of different components. We have to source various parts from different countries. Even the nuts and screws are imported from the US. If I had to fabricate the drone’s flight controllers port, I have to source it from a company in Gujarat. This would mean that I have to share my designs with them, and they would provide the ports based on those designs. Similarly, we share motor designs with a company in the US, and from there, we source some of the parts. And when we talk about a customised product, the price is almost thrice of what we pay for manufacturing a normal drone. Hence, sourcing quality components is a major issue faced by all drone manufacturers. 

What kind of effort goes into the design and development of the drones you manufacture?

The most crucial step of the design and development process is the aerodynamics. In any aircraft, the centre of gravity (CG) is the most essential factor. It should not be changing in every flight. But when it comes to the pesticides drone, due to the fluidic nature of the liquid, they flow front and back; thus, shifting the CG. Compensating this is a little tough, but with experience, we have mastered it. The other important part is the dynamics. In most of the farm fields, the airflow is high. Controlling the dynamics is quite challenging, and that is done through multiple simulations. So once the machine is designed, we put it into the simulator and after an exhaustive analysis of various simulations at varying parameters, a report is generated, and the design is finalised for production.

How many drones do you currently have? And how are they different in design?

We have around 30,10L drones, and we are aggregating 300 other drones for surveillance purposes. Our surveillance drone weighs less than 2 kgs, and the weight for the agricultural drone is about 23 kgs. There is a vast difference in terms of size and weight. As I said earlier, we are not looking at it as a product, but as a solution, so it varies on a case to case basis. It takes approximately eight full days to manufacture the drones excluding the first maiden flight.  

Considering this interview is for an AI portal, could you please tell me the AI elements used in the operativity of drones?

Certainly, for several lands, we do terrain mapping as every agricultural land is not a plane slope. The terrain-following radar we are using; has to analyse the type of terrain it is navigating over and maintain a certain amount of distance from the land irrespective of the MSL or the ASL. This is then analysed, and the altitude is calibrated to maintain secure flight distance for irregular or regular surfaces. 

Surveillance drones can also do object tracking on the basis of increase or decrease in relative speed with the object. If there are any obstacles, the drone reduces its speed to zero or realigns its navigation path to avoid the obstacle.

As they say, “hardships and challenges are the recipes for success”. Would you like to share some of your experiences?

The challenge was more of a learning curve for me. The biggest challenge, for any business is to have a pool of talented people that share the same vision as you. So, building a team which was highly skilled in drone technology was a challenge, but after that, everything was steady. Currently, my team is out on the ground working persistently, just because I am out in the field every day; that’s the kind of team required in any flourishing start-ups.

Do you think that Drone Technology would negatively impact employment levels?

Name any drone company in India, and you’ll find an ex-Garuda staff there. When I joined Garuda, I knew that the advancement and growth in drone technology are going to be exponential. To my understanding, there were around 50K to 60K drones registered in India; some used as a hobby or for photography purposes. Recently, a report claimed that there are around 2 Lacs drones in India, registered and otherwise. So, if you look at the numbers, the usage of drones both registered and unregistered has grown and taken the world by a storm. 

No matter the business, a demand must be created and then the product. However, for drones, the demand is generated, and the product is already out in the market; now, the companies have to concentrate on manufacturing a more stable product. As soon as the competition sets in, more companies will try to get into this business, building a better product and creating more jobs. 

Many countries around the world have been talking about launching an air taxi service using drones. Hence, the potential is enormous in terms of employment. If you look at the automobile industry and the way it’s been going for the past 6-7 months people have stopped buying cars. The automobile industry is finding it exceedingly challenging to sell cars because of various factors such as fuel, renewable energy, electric cars or futuristic modes of transportation. The drone technology is disrupting the business, and there is a huge job requirement in the market provided the person stays in this business for 2-3 years.

Any final words on your future aspirations?

In 2011, I started with selling drone’s components; I was engaged in something called aeromodelling. Out of interest, I started learning about how drones are operated. I never expected to be the CEO of any company, but then Garuda happened. So, at this point in time, there’s no expectation as to where I see myself going forward, but I believe I would always aspire to keep my learning curve to always grow exponentially.

Image Source: Needpix