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PUNE: A Chakan-based defence company has manufactured a heavy-lift utility drone that can carry a human being named ‘Varuna’ which will soon be inducted in the Indian Navy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was shown a demo of the ‘Varuna’ personal air vehicle, an autonomous multi-copter drone capable of carrying the passenger.

Varuna has been designed and manufactured by Chakan-based Sagar Defence Engineering Private Limited (SDE). Its manufacturers claim that the heavy-duty drone can move goods including equipment, liquids and even human beings with a standardised payload attachment. The drone can be remotely controlled or flown automatically along predetermined routes. It can hold a range of payloads in the area between its landing gear because of the widely used, standardised rail attachment mechanism in logistics and aerospace. The drone has the capability to carry payloads up to 130kg, and can cover 25 km in just 30 minutes.

Capt. Nikunj Parashar, founder, SDE, along with his two co-founders Babbar and Lakshay Dang, have designed the drone for the Indian Navy with the sole purpose to develop an indigenous technology that can be incubated and fielded to safeguard frontline warriors on the battlefield and reinforce the surveillance and security of the nation.

“As a robotics organisation, we firmly believe in intelligence open to ideas; unleashing the true potential of innovation and agility to accelerate world transition to autonomous systems during critical missions to save human lives, time, and cost. Our platforms are agnostic-powered, safe, and efficient hardware with integrated software for maritime and aviation applications, agriculture, logistics, and personal transportation, and can contribute a lot to enhancing the security, surveillance and overall growth of the nation,” said Babbar.

“When the project began, the initial concerns were definitely with respect to the necessary clearances and funding for the project. But as they say, where there is a will there is a way. We were blessed to get handholding by the Indian Navy, iDEX team and ministry of defence, all of whom trusted and supported us. They connected us with Mazgaon Dockyard Limited, which funded us to turn our vision into reality. During this journey, the ministry of civil aviation, DGCA and ACT came on board and backed us in our initiative to source the necessary permissions for a successful flight demonstration and unwavering commitment to the ideal of true atma nirbhar bharat in the defence and aerospace sectors,” Babbar said.

Capt. Parashar, who served as master mariner, has more than 14 years’ experience of navigational operation of merchant vessels ranging from very large to ultra large crude oil carriers, and began his start-up journey towards autonomous unmanned systems with his two NASA awarded cofounders Mridul Babbar and Lakshay Dang from a 120 square foot office in Borivali, Mumbai, to meet the needs of technological competency in the maritime and aviation sectors.

In the near future, SDE aims to introduce ‘Varuna’ in all new forms with enhanced aspects to cover much longer distances, with larger payload capacities, more advanced features, and smarter designs in order to revitalise electric mobility in the urban air mobility space. Thirty drones christened multiple smaller ship launched tactical spotting multi-copter drones manufactured by the company have already been inducted in the Indian Navy.

Varuna has been initially designed, developed and built for the Indian Navy keeping their requirements in mind namely to transfer storage and personnel between moving warships.

Varuna has been enhanced for use during times of distress, emergency evacuations, disaster relief and medical emergencies and can be extremely valuable in saving human lives.

Varuna can be used for casualty evacuation in case of road accidents.

It can also be used as an air ambulance in remote villages.

In the longer run, Varuna version 3 will also be used as an air taxi in metro cities.

Varuna is specially designed for autonomous take-off and landing on a moving platform and has the capability of inter-ship transfer of stores and personnel between moving ships due to rigorous research and development for years.

Varuna has the capability of covering up to 25 km each day.

Varuna has a range of 25 km.

A 25 Km trip would take a typical Varuna 30 minutes to complete at 80 to 100 kmph and result in time savings of at least 50%.

Deployment of Varuna for aerial logistics that are independent of ground infrastructure and conveyance across congested routes, hold the key to same-day or even next-hour delivery in urban and rural areas.

Heavy-lift drones can also help with challenging building jobs. For instance, depending on the instruments attached to the drone, heavy-lift drone application cases outside of metropolitan areas include agriculture, offshore transportation, and humanitarian help.

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