India Inks $3M Drone Contract to Increase Use of Professional UAVs in Three States

India’s elite surveying organization Survey of India awards India’s first survey grade hybrid UAV Trinity+ order to India’s oldest surveying instrument company API-ROTER GROUP partnered with Quantum- Systems GmbH Germany.

Sajid Mukhtar (MD, API-Roter Group) with Surveyor General Girish Kumar and Florian Seibel (CEO Quantum System)

This cooperation is a novelty in the Indian market as the drone market is tightly regulated and several requirements for professional use have to be met.

“Survey of India” takes a leadership role in providing user focused, cost effective, reliable and quality geospatial data, information and intelligence for meeting the needs of national security, sustainable national development, and new information markets. As a technology, drones are of the highest interest in all these areas and promise an increase in data quality, timeliness and at the same time cost savings in the survey.

India takes this development seriously and will be a worldwide example for the sustainable use of drones. Very soon Indian sky will be seeing a lot of Directorate General Defence Purchase (DGCA) compliant Trinity+ UAVs flying

Trinity+ prevails against the competition In order to find the best system in the market for this application, a call for tenders was launched in 2018 to compete different systems against each other. The catalogue of requirements comprised numerous disciplines, some of which were specified by the state and others by the customer.

The participating companies Ansari Precision Instruments and Quantum-Systems GmbH are proud to have won the tender against 8 competitors.

The tender required an intensive cooperation between API-Roter Group and Quantum- Systems GmbH. The drones are specially configured for the customer’s needs and equipped with additional features. Making use of the “Make in India” initiative the systems include PPK, position lights, GSM modem integration and a flight time of 60 minutes.

The UAVs are to be equipped with ADS-B technology for Detect and Avoid (DAA) functionality as well as for airspace awareness and Air Traffic Control (ATC) compatibility. Quantum-Systems has partnered with U.S. based uAvionix Corporation for integration of the ping20S low-power Mode S ADS-B transponder. The ping20S is the world’s smallest, lightest, and most affordable Mode S ADS-B transponder at just 25 grams. It allows the Trinity+ to respond to Mode S radar interrogations by ATC and Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS).

India is at the forefront in the use of UAVs India is making great efforts to play a pioneering role in the promising fast-growing field of drone technology. Thus, the legal and structural framework conditions are currently being created to make the potential value of the technology actually usable and to offer the public direct added value.

In the future, drones will be used for mapping and producing geographical maps and aerial photographs. Deployments in large cities are also conceivable (cadastral surveying).

The resulting data sets are of great interest to all parties active in the region, as they can be used for spatial planning and development. Big Data applications in particular will enable completely new approaches to spatial development issues in the future.

Initially, the Trinity+ UAVs will be deployed in three states with the aim of flying throughout India. The first delivery is expected end of this month.