India¡¯s Drone Journey Towards Flying Taxis: What The Next Five Years Have In Store

Shortly after the 75th Independence Day celebrations, the Indian government released Drone Rules 2021 in August, aimed at jumpstarting its fledgling drone sector. Now in 2022, it¡¯s possible to guess India¡¯s drone journey with some much needed clarity.

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Explained: The Evolution Of India's Drone Sector

From import of UAS (unmanned aerial systems, which is the official term for a drone) devices to manufacturing local ones, and creating a drone ecosystem of local OEMs with local applications, the new Drone Rules 2021 give companies like Qualcomm a huge role to play in India¡¯s drone ambitions.

Drone PLI scheme for local manufacturing

¡°This is not a token gesture, it¡¯s a series of steps that¡¯s encouraging the drone industry to well and truly take off in India,¡± says Uday Dodla, Senior Director, Business Development, Qualcomm India, highlighting how the new drone pilot license cost is less than a cup of coffee, there¡¯s no more overwhelming red-tape for drone startups, and you don¡¯t need DGCA¡¯s clearance for every drone you want to fly in India.

Also Read: Indian Govt Uses Drone To Deliver Vaccines In Remote Areas Of Nagaland, Manipur

¡°Import of drones still has some concerns, and the government is rightfully keeping a close eye on what type of drones are coming into the country, but allowing foreign ownership and FDI in the drone sector is only going to give the whole ecosystem a huge lift,¡± Uday Dodla suggests.

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Speaking about investments, Uday highlights the importance of the government's PLI scheme for local manufacturing and its long-term impact on the drone industry. ¡°From phones and laptops to finally drones, the PLI scheme is used by the government to encourage manufacturing and it¡¯s essential for drone companies looking for oxygen,¡± explains Uday, because it¡¯s a signal for not only a bigger market because of the drone policy, but also being able to manufacture those drones locally. Although it¡¯s just ?120 crore for now with 20% local manufacturing incentive, ¡°For companies that are vertically integrated, who design and make drones, they're going to benefit quite a lot.¡±

A household name for smartphone users, many don¡¯t know mankind¡¯s first ever drone helicopter to fly on Mars (NASA Mars Ingenuity Helicopter) was powered by Qualcomm. Since that time, Qualcomm has upgraded its drone platform (called the Qualcomm Flight Platform) and its India trajectory, according to Uday Dodla.

¡°For India, in the beginning it's not about the number of drones that are out there, but the amount of services that these drones can enable and that's what we are focusing on currently," Uday mentions, how Qualcomm¡¯s aiming to activate multiple drone verticals and services.

Drone applications and services in India

Uday explains this with a few examples like inspecting electricity transmission lines in remote areas, typically if it's a hydro power project. "Normally you would send up a crew which would take days to reach and inspect, putting life and limb in danger. It's unnecessarily risky if you can just fly up a drone there to do a human's job. Similar labour-intensive tasks with a high degree of risk a drone can easily do,¡± according to Uday.

Also Read: Beating Retreat Rehearsals Show 1,000 Made-In-India Drones' Amazing Light Show

"A drone can inspect for example, a windmill, a lot closer than a human in a safe and efficient manner, transmitting data in real-time from seven simultaneous camera angles at the same time. So it can inspect seven different locations or the same windmill, which can be transferred real-time to the cloud for an operator to analyze and interpret. This is just one way how drones will disrupt this industry of aerial survey and maintenance of critical infrastructure."

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Another area of implementation is in the area of broadcast entertainment and public safety, feels Uday. "Think of F1 race tracks having a powerful but tiny drone flying overhead for aerial shots, wouldn't it be more safe and efficient? Drones have come in very handy during pandemic lockdowns and crowd control, in terms of aerial surveillance to ensure people don't cluster up and in some cases even sanitize restricted areas. Imagine if all police cars and police stations have a drone or two that they can send out for patrol. Those are the kind of possibilities we're aiming to help evolve in India right now," he says.

Of flying drone taxi services being built in India

Drone taxis and autonomous flying vehicles ferrying passengers isn't going to happen within the next two-three years due to a very simple reason, according to Qualcomm India's Uday Dodla.

Also Read: Drone Defibrillator Saves 71-Year-Old Man Having A Heart Attack Faster Than Ambulance

"Drones are currently being used to solve situations where vision is the key, enabling vision-as-a-service in a tiny flying machine. Passengers-as-a-service in flying drones is still at a very nascent stage. We can't name them, but we did speak to a company recently about how we can help them in the area of flying taxis in India, but there are some fundamental compute challenges that need to be worked upon," mentions Uday.

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"We have no problem supporting what we call heavy lift drones or high payload drones. We are seeing at least a couple of companies trying to do this here in India, and we are in the early stages of discussion with them. The market is very small, but we feel that the way the cities are being built in India this could be a good point. Initially, it won't be like a shared taxi where I have three people and each of them are getting off at different locations. Flying taxis will fly from point to point directly, say from the top of a hospital to one or two designated places apart from the airport," says Uday.

Of course, all these air taxis will need bigger batteries, which is the biggest challenge that needs to be solved, according to Uday Dodla. "We are going to see battery technology mature over the next few years with EVs, so a combination of battery technology and drone technology coming together will enable air taxis to take off. But it's still very early right now in India."

Regarding delivery-as-a-service with drones, the US is seeing more action than India right now, where big freight companies and e-commerce companies are running trials and safety. It won¡¯t be too long before these services take off in India, believes Uday Dodla.

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"There¡¯s actually no hindrance. If everyone's allowed to fly drones and the drones can carry a few kilograms of additional weight, there's no reason for them not to become delivery drones. It's just a matter of time before this happens in India. Over the next year, we'll see a lot more drone applications specifically in public safety and in delivering emergency services. A couple of years from now, we should start seeing drones as a serious service business with inspection, mapping and survey-related activities becoming more commonplace. Due to the various safety and regulatory approvals, not to mention battery innovation, we'll see flying taxis emerge in India after five years," according to Uday Dodla.

5G will unleash drone era in India

We grew up flying kites on our building terraces on festivals like Makar Sankranti; so when will kids in India fly drones instead of kites in the sky, I ask Uday towards the end of our chat. He laughs, suggesting how it won¡¯t happen until 5G becomes mainstream.

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¡°5G spectrum auction is scheduled for later this year, and it¡¯s going to take a few years after that for it to get widely deployed across India,¡± says Uday Dodla, highlighting how Qualcomm¡¯s trying to enable the drone ecosystem in India with meaningful, long-term partnerships.

¡°We're trying to help Indian drone companies with essential building blocks through reference designs, platform support and SDK access for each of them to customize depending on their use case. For example, if a drone startup¡¯s trying to solve a vision-based problem, they can use our vision SDK. If a drone requires specific command and control instructions, our digital signal processing SDK enables functions to be written on the hardware layer,¡± explains Uday. ¡°We don¡¯t want drone startups or companies getting into the drone business to recreate the wheel every single time themselves, but cut down that process by providing our platform in a very seamless fashion so they¡¯re ready to solve real-world problems once 5G starts rolling out.¡±

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