Netra dashes across Thiruvananthapuram skies

Netra, an unmanned aerial vehicle is developed jointly by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and ideaForge, a company floated by former students of the Indian Institute of Technology.

Passers-by on Mahatma Gandhi Road near the Legislative Assembly in the city were taken aback to see a minuscule object hovering over their head on Tuesday little realising that it’s the same machine that keeps a close eye on subversive activities in the border areas and Naxal-affected regions in the country.

Netra, an unmanned aerial vehicle developed jointly by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and ideaForge, a company floated by former students of the Indian Institute of Technology, flew over the city skyscape as part of a demonstration exercise on the sidelines of a workshop on oil spill management held in the city.

The object, now widely used by the army, paramilitary forces, police forces of various States and National Disaster Response Force, took off from the lawn of the Mascot Hotel and flew over 50 metres capturing the traffic movement, images of various buildings, including the Legislative Assembly, which could be monitored real time by the ground staff on their computer.

D.C. Sekhar, director of Alpha Mers, a private company that organised the workshop, said the objective was to demonstrate the object to representatives of various government departments involved in oil spill management.

“The equipment is now used by army and paramilitary forces for operational requirement. The object has the capability to detect oil spills using its thermal camera,” he said.

Endurance

Marketing Manager of ideaForge Desh Raj Singh said it has been designed to carry out surveillance in an area of 4 km from the location of its take-off. It could fly up to 400 metres and could be launched from a small area and has an endurance capacity of 40 to 45 minutes of battery charge. The object is equipped with a high resolution camera that can tilt and pan to facilitate wider surveillance, he added.

The unmanned aerial vehicle had been procured by law enforcing agencies of Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh and used for traffic surveillance and crowd management.

“We have already supplied 60 vehicles. The vehicle is provided only to government agencies under the strict supervision of the DRDO,” he said.