The Age of Drones Powering India to a New Paradigm

In this article, Anish Michael and Roshan Toshniwal highlight how drones are poised to redefine the future of mobility and become integral components of the urban ecosystem. Commercial drones have the potential to revolutionize the aviation landscape by providing sustainable and innovative solutions, thereby reducing the need for more resource-intensive processes. The disruptive power of drones is expected to significantly reshape various sectors.

- Anish Michael and Roshan Toshniwal

"Successful technologies always begin as hobbies…,” says renowned physicist Freeman Dyson in his book, Imagined Worlds. Pursuing interests beyond the mundane routine of repairing bicycles, led the Wright Brothers to invent motorized aeroplanes. Today, air travel has become an indispensable part of our lives connecting the world and impacting global economies. Similarly, drones and related technologies that began as a hobby are at a cusp of disrupting the world order.

Drones are set to redefine the future of mobility and become an integral part of the urban ecosystem. The gradual liberalization in commercial drone regulations is redefining the future of mobility in the urban ecosystem to efficiently enhance services for numerous applications spanning across agriculture, construction, logistics and delivery and emergency services, and even data collection to improve surveillance among others. However, drone operations are complex and require advanced softwares and hardwares in addition to a good telecommunication network.

Since drones are customized based on different requirements ranging from payload, batteries, sensors and data storage among other things, Dronesas-a-Service (DRaaS) as a business model could thrive as a solution. This will appropriate customized service requirements based on the demands eliminating the need for an investment in drones, hardware or software, pilots and even training programmes to ensure time and cost efficiency for end users.