- The event was held on the India Technology Platform
- Drones Federation Of India was the knowledge partner for this event
- Amber Dubey, Joint Secretary delivered the opening keynote
- Software Industry in India is claimed to be the greatest strength for drone technology at the moment
- Infrastructure, Security, Healthcare and Agriculture to be the key focus areas for application
The EFY Group organised a webinar at the launch of the Earth’s First Drone World. The event had the Drone Federation of India as their knowledge partners. Being held on the India Technology Week platform, the first Keynote speech was delivered by Sri Amber Dubey, Joint Secretary Ministry Of Aviation, who spoke about the effectiveness of Drone Technology in India.
The theme ‘Popular and Emerging Use-cases of Drones’ was addressed by an efficient panel of experienced, knowledgeable personalities consisting of Roopak Jhakmola, Drones Consultant, Smit Shah, Director, Drone Federation Of India, Prashant Pillai from Indian Robotics Solutions, Brijesh, Founder Garuda UAV, and Mrinal Pai, Co-founder, Skylark
The panel was moderated by Kanav Kumar, Director, Better Drones. The panellists spoke mainly about the drone ecosystem and the upcoming applications of drone technology. The panellists also discussed the opportunities emerging in the current scenario of COVID 19, and how relevant it is to meet the needs of the sector for a skilled and trained workforce.
With an increase in the autonomous technologies, drones have become extremely deployable across several industries. In today’s scenario concerning the national lockdown and social distancing due to coronavirus outbreak, the unmanned aerial vehicles have become a necessity more than a luxury.
Despite these devices being present for a long time, they have been majorly used for military purposes. But as now with new innovations, one can see their implementation for several purposes. The rising demand for drones in the market has driven some of the great innovators to come up with a wide array of innovative drone solutions.
The target drones market can be classified on the basis of end-use sector, end use, application, mode of operation, payload capacity, build, target type, engine type, speed, type, and region.
Based on their usage they have also been classified into aerial targets, marine targets, and ground targets. The aerial targets segment has the potential to lead during the forecast period.
The defence sector is expected to lead and grow at a high CAGR during the forecast period from 2020 to 2025.
Leading globally in terms of products and services
As the software industry is our strength and has matured with time, a lot of companies are already working along with several motivated institutions. This is the kind of ecosystem that would help in making a different kind of applications around drones.
Different applications like automating drone, AI Integration, automating the workflows, could be the strength and this is the main focus area.
Leading globally in terms of IRS and application
What we can see are the drones which have multi utilities, the cost and logistical challenge of taking one drone to the other part it’s a major challenge right now. People have already started investing in technology. They tend to have developed a kind of mentality that this is an industry that can be growing in the upcoming 10 years. They have to be aware of the exceptional existence and be confident to invest as a whole.
Leading globally in terms of standardisation and training
As it has been said, one needs to build innovative use cases for the short term, start integrating sensors start building the entire solution aspect.
From there, the entire process of manufacturing drones and assembling drones could begin and then the officials can eventually move on to digitisation of components. We should also focus on the entire high value – low volume ecosystem first. As an industry, there is hope to have our substantial market share soon on the global scale from a user perspective. We should look at the four to five main use cases like agriculture, Infrastructure, Health, defence, security surveillance.
Current and the upcoming opportunities
In terms of the entire ecosystem, India is at place where one is aware of all the uses of drones, but whether it can be sued in the current scenario is a different question. Speaking of defence, as as far as the military is concerned there is a need of smaller drones, which could be used by small groups. There are plenty of emerging use cases and the focus is on how to automate the manual process. There are plenty of opportunities where we can build applications and use to globally. So, especially in renewable, solar needs complete operation and maintenance. There could be plenty of other use cases which could be integrated into the same platform.
Upcoming opportunities in terms of standardisation
Standardisation would play a very major role as the entire difference between someone assembling a drone right using out of the box components and using some of the safety and security-critical guidelines would come up as where two-three organisations in India could help.
The Quality Council of India is currently coming up on a certification scheme, which certifies the entire drone in itself. BIS can also help in creating other schemes for all other components and UAVs. This will help set a minimum benchmark so that everyone who is building drones selling out in the market follows some basic benchmarks.
