CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Mr. Amit Raushan, Co-Founder & Director, Nibrus Technologies
- Could you describe how Surveyaan was established and what motivated you to pursue a career in aerospace and drone manufacturing?
During our college years, we three friends—Abhishek, myself, and Shubham, have been enthusiastic about robotics, and we competed in several competitions and took home multiple trophies, including the IIT Bombay-hosted national E-Yantra Robotics Competition.
We worked for nearly two years in different multinational corporations after graduation, but we kept in touch and frequently discussed our coursework. These discussions inspired us to launch our own business- Surveyaan. As devoted students, we had always thought that we could accomplish great things together.
Although I and Abhishek took an aero-modelling course at IIT Delhi while in college, we never constructed a drone. The primary focus of our work was ground robots during our college days. But we were motivated to build drones. So we began developing drones and software that could process the drone data.
When we started, we found that there was a wide-open market gap. The price for buying a drone and its attached photogrammetry software was nearly around 10-12 lakhs with no complete solution for survey consultants. This is where we thought that we would not only build the drones but also the software that could process drone data.
The users would not need to seek out many vendors, from drones to software, and would be provided a one-stop shop for everything. For consultants, this is cloud-based software and an easier-to-afford subscription model whereby they would not need to invest in setup costs for maintaining a huge infrastructure.
After almost 3 years of business, we feel proud of the advancements we have made in drone technology. Today, we have more than 200 customers who are in the Surveyaan ecosystem.
- What are the main uses for Surveyaan’s drones, and how do they help the sectors or businesses that use your technology?
Our certified model, Surveyaan V1, is mainly designed for surveying and mapping purposes. We started out focusing on mining consultants, but we have since grown to include roads, canals, railways, and agriculture, among other industries. Some experts use it to make pretty 3D models for the survey of buildings and monuments. The other applications of Surveyaan V1 include solar ground mount surveys.
Though the main use of Surveyaan is surveying, it can also be used for videography. The stabilization in the camera makes you capture 5k videos smoothly.
- The aerospace sector is undergoing fast change. In your opinion, what developments will influence drone technology in the future?
Despite being in an early stage in India, drone technology is trending. There are over 200 startups in drone technology emerging almost every day. There is a need in the ecosystem for high-quality drones from India to compete with international drone manufacturers.
While the Government of India has set the rules to streamline its operations, it is now on the manufacturer’s side to ensure innovation for fulfilling the diverse requirements from different sectors.
Different types of drones are needed by different sectors. Swarm drones have some use for marketing and advertising. The development of delivery drones is taking place at present; however, a strong infrastructure needs to be developed to facilitate drone deliveries.
The greatest proportion of drone companies in India, which are about 70 percent, manufacture agricultural drones owing to government subsidies.
- How is Surveyaan keeping itself up to date in the drone technology?
As I have mentioned before, drone is a very vast sector. It would not make any sense if we kept on jumping from one sector to another. We have started with the surveying and mapping domain and would like to accelerate in that.
We have made a Differential GNSS device called SurveyPod, which offers precise coordinates. We have integrated this technology into our drones to attain millimeter accuracy.
Similarly, we are developing and integrating other sensors on the drone to make it more accurate and reliable.
- In what ways have drones altered conventional project workflows? How has Surveyaan helped the businesses to upgrade the survey technology?
Foundationally drones have changed the industry workflow. A lot of human effort has been reduced. The drone collects highly detailed aerial images much quicker than a survey on the ground. Places where only 10s or 100s of points were being taken in the survey have increased to millions and billions of points which ultimately increases the accuracy.
When we introduced drones to survey consultants, for most of them it was an expensive, advanced technology. We made this advanced technology affordable by bringing almost one-fourth of the typical costs but not compromising the quality. With our affordable drones and cloud-based photogrammetry software, a survey consultant could upgrade their technology without spending much and need not maintain a huge infrastructure.
- The drone technology is at an early stage in India. How do you impart knowledge to the masses related to drones and in particular related to the Survey domain?
We have been careful in choosing our brand names. We started with Surveyaan, an aircraft for Surveys and also we have created an educational channel, named SurveyGyaan for imparting knowledge related to Drone and Survey Technologies. We have held our customer’s hand when it came to imparting education. Slowly, we created YouTube and Medium channels where we frequently post videos and blogs. Being in a very niche industry, we feel that we have got a handful of subscribers and they have been appreciating our work.
