Grahaa Space is a DPIIT recognised space tech startup based out of Bangalore. They are designing and developing a cluster of earth observation nanosatellites to be launched into low earth orbit. The videos are processed and the analysed feed will be made available to public and private organisations through an AI-powered interactive web platform.

Ramesh Kumar V is the founder and CEO at Grahaa Space. An electrical engineer by profession, he holds an MBA from Manipal University. In a career spanning 16 years, he has actively built 3 startups – two in India and one in Singapore – with a cumulative revenue of more than half a million dollars. In addition, he has co-authored 5 technical books which are being used for distance learning programs at various universities. He is a fellow of the Start-up Leadership program (Bangalore chapter) and is also affiliated with a number of professional organisations, including Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), The Planetary Society and International Association for Human Values (IAHV). INDIAai caught up with Rakesh to know more about their latest innovations.

Latest Patent Filings

We are working on designing and developing a cluster of earth observation nanosatellites to be launched into low earth orbit and intend to stream near real-time high-resolution videos of client-defined areas of interest. The videos would be processed in real-time onboard the satellites using our AI algorithms and the analysed feed will be made available to public and private organisations through an AI-powered interactive web platform.

Provisional filing has been done for our System and Method to stream high-resolution videos from low earth orbit. The proposed system consists of a cluster of earth observation nanosatellites that would be capable of streaming high-resolution videos of client-defined areas of interest. The AI program enables faster and efficient onboard compression and data handling. In addition, the data dissemination portal utilises machine learning algorithms for object identification from satellite images.

Once our technology demonstration (using the patent-pending technology) is successful, it would enable near real-time videos using our nanosatellite cluster of any specific location in the world. This helps in a wide range of on-ground applications including, but not limited to, disaster and emergency response, military reconnaissance missions, agricultural management, investigative journalism, smart city initiatives & e-governance, marine intelligence, infrastructure and tracking industrial activity over a specific area.

Importance of patenting your inventions

Patenting enables an individual or an organisation to safeguard their unique idea or device or method. It prevents others from duplicating it and ensures that the owner of the patent can exploit it to the fullest for the greater good. It also helps with monetisation - for all the time, energy and effort spent on the specific idea or device or any system.

Challenges in the patent filing process

Formulation of Patent Claims has to be very specific and should cover all major aspects of the invention. We had to take utmost care to include all relevant pointers to ensure that we get maximum protection. We spent a lot of time and effort to show the present uniqueness and also increase the future scope of protection.

The cost associated with patent formulation with all relevant details included is high. This takes a considerable amount of money if we outsource it to patent attorneys. If done by ourselves, it takes a lot of time to ensure that we have maximum protection. For startups like us, both of the above - time and money are 2 sparse resources.

The Indian government has been taking a lot of steps to encourage and ease the process of IP filing in India - like [a] setting up CIPAM, [b] framing the National Intellectual Property Rights policy, [c] digitising the patenting process and the past filings, [d] appointment of a lot of examiners etc. Still, the process takes a lot of time.

AI patent trends

In my perspective and experience working with the IBM Watson team in the past and a wide variety of startups right now, we would be seeing more vernacular AI for NLP systems. AI patents related to various systems and sub-systems of autonomous vehicles, Geospatial intelligence tools and systems, defence equipment, rocket and satellite-related systems and subsystems are some of the trends that we can expect in the coming years.