CHENNAI: Anna University has invited companies to manufacture unmanned aerial systems (UAS), which have been developed by Madras Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Centre for Aerospace Research (CASR). Director of CASR, K Senthil Kumar said this is for the first time that the CASR is looking for companies having interests towards making and marketing of unmanned aerial systems designed and developed by it.
The CASR will provide technology to the companies and will charge royalty for it. “The royalty earned will be spent on strengthening research work in the centre,” said Kumar.He further said there is no proper company manufacturing unmanned aerial systems or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the country. “Majority of the companies procure components of the unmanned aerial systems from different parts of the world and only do the integration in India. But by using our technology, companies can completely manufacture the UAV, better known as drone, on their own.
The project will not only boost our innovations but will also give a major boost to the UAV manufacturing sector in the country,” said Senthil Kumar.He cited that presently, the drones used in India are mainly imported illegally from China and other foreign countries. “Using such UAVs is a risk because these drones are mainly controlled by online applications and the data they gather gets stored in a foreign server.”Hence, we have invited only Indian companies registered under Indian Companies Act,” said the CASR director.
Notably, CASR has been doing dedicated research over the last decade in the field of UAV. Kumar added that their research mainly focuses on making use of drones on societal applications for immediate and future needs of the nation.
He said that the Indian Air Force has announced a UAV Swarm Drone Challenge event called Mehar Baba challenge, leading to co-production with Indian Military Base Repair Depot. CASR is in Phase II presently and looking for joint venture partners to fund the systems/ sub systems which will enable CASR to participate in the forthcoming stages.