Drone Solutions For A Billion Indians
India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world today. And the service sector is the largest contributor to our rapidly expanding economy. However, in just a decade, the drone industry has emerged as a catalyst with the potential of impacting every sector. If scaled up, drone solutions can have a lasting impact on the lives of over a billion Indians.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are not a newly adopted technology in India. They’ve been actively used and developed for military applications. Aerial reconnaissance, surveillance, and mapping are some of the most common applications of military drones. Their applications in enterprises have become magnified recently. The drone analytics market is projected to grow to a staggering USD 6.5 billion industry by 2027. Thus, India is well on its way to becoming a drone hub. One of the direct impacts of the booming drone industry is the rise in high-skilled employment. The need to build, maintain, and operate drone-based infrastructure has skyrocketed the demand for a high-skilled workforce.
Understanding the ripple effect of drone technology requires an insight into how they work and their industrial applications. Drones are rapidly becoming a critical tool for businesses in India, with over 200 drone-based startups currently operating in the country. These unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being used to optimize operations, cut costs, and improve productivity by collecting and analyzing data. While drones can serve multiple industries, their use is currently having the most significant impact in the fields of mining, urban and rural development, agriculture, renewable energy and infrastructure inspection.
In urban and rural areas, drones are being used for tasks such as digital land record creation, land elevation analysis, irrigation and water pipeline planning, and property tax assessment. In agriculture, drones are being used for tasks such as crop monitoring and pest control. In infrastructure inspection, drones are being used to assess the condition of roads, bridges, buildings, and track the progress of the construction sites
Developing Smarter Cities and Sustainable Infrastructure
Drones and drone-based solutions are proving to be valuable tools for urban and rural development in India. In rural areas, which are home to more than 64 per cent of India's population, drones are being used to address a range of challenges including creation of accurate land ownership records, enabling faster and accurate implementation of projects covering water pipeline, electrification, agricultural land leveling etc. In urban areas, drones are being used for tasks such as road construction management, real estate, property tax assessment, city planning, and garbage management.
Presently, drones are mapping several states under the SVAMITVA scheme of GoI. Government departments can further utilise SVAMITVA data to design basic infrastructure such as water pipelines, sewage and fibernet networks efficiently. Another method of making cities and villages self-sustaining is through rooftop solar potential mapping. Drone data can help analyse the hotspots for rooftop solar panel installation and drive down energy costs and provide maximum solar efficiency through grid connected systems. The same data can also be used to conduct accurate elevation analysis and slope assessment for land development and designing watersheds over large areas.
Therefore, the primary way that drones are being used to improve urban and rural development in India is by providing accurate and up-to-date data. Traditional data collection methods, such as manned aircraft, satellites, and manual surveys, are time-consuming, resource-intensive, and prone to error. By contrast, drones can collect large amounts of data at a fraction of the cost, with superior accuracy, resolution and significantly lower turnaround times. The resolution offered by drone technology is as good as 3 cm per pixel in 3D which is 100 times better than the best satellite data available in the global market. This type of drone data can be processed and analyzed using cloud platforms, allowing for immediate business intelligence.
Apart from urban and rural infrastructure, drones can help safeguard agriculture. The role of drones in designing irrigation channels, watershed development, reviving groundwater levels, predicting yields, spraying pesticides and ensuring proper land records will eventually form the backbone of a flourishing agricultural industry.
Powering India’s Energy Needs
Drone-based solutions are necessary for addressing India's energy requirements. In the coal mining industry, for example, drones are being used to make the process more efficient, lowering the carbon footprint of coal production, and bringing affordable energy closer to consumers.
One way that drones are helping to improve the efficiency of coal mining is by creating detailed maps of coal mines, helping companies plan and execute mining operations more effectively. By targeting high-yield areas, mining companies can increase their output while using fewer resources. In addition, drones help improve the safety of mines significantly through methods such as haul road analysis, dump analysis, regular monitoring, etc. Due to the low cost per survey, drones can be flown every day and with the help of cloud computing, the data can be processed and analysed instantly.
Another way drones are helping address India's energy needs is through empowering renewable energy sources. For example, drones can be used to help create well-designed solar plants by providing accurate data on factors such as solar radiation and topography. Drones can help monitor the efficiency of solar plants and ensure that they are operating at optimum capacity. In addition, drones can perform regular inspections of solar plants, and wind turbines, and identify potential bottlenecks before they become major roadblocks.
Overall, the use of drones and drone-based solutions will bring affordable and reliable energy to the people of India. This can pave the way to end energy subsidies and instead streamline infrastructure development across the country. Thereby, significantly improving the quality of life of the citizens. As the drone market in India continues to grow, it is expected to drive economic growth, contributing to the country's goal of becoming a USD 5 trillion economic powerhouse.
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