Dumping old ways in lockdown: Mysuru city uses drones for announcement

Public announcements using moving vehicles and speakers, microphones are not an uncommon sight in India. But interestingly, the local administration in Mysuru, a heritage city in Karnataka, are now using drones for making important public announcements on Covid-19.

For this, the city administration has tied up with Droneman.in, an unmanned aerial vehicle database company based out of Bengaluru. The company intends to replicate the same for communicating vital information in collaboration with local authorities in other parts of the country as well.

Apart from the successful field implementation of the audio-announcements in association with Mysuru Police on Wednesday, Droneman.in is also using its drones for other field applications. The company is assisting Mysuru police commissioner in surveying of the city by connecting him with the drone pilots in the region. Similarly, the firm also helped Mumbai Police to record message from a local religious leader using a drone and disseminate it to the public.

These drones are capable of playing both recorded and live messages, which according to experts, make them highly effective medium for disseminating the customized message to the public as compared to phone or television broadcast.

“India has only 150 police personnel per one hundred thousand people, which makes it a necessity in deploying drones to capture suspicious behaviour (like crowding) and also contain the spread of the disease,” said Aditya Kothari, co-founder and CEO of Plixr Technologies, who is spearheading the project on Droneman.in as part of Startup vs Covid19 initiative.

“While the platform is built for immediate Covid relief, it is customisable and can be extended to future needs of the country, to be better prepared for all emergencies. Droneman can be a bridge between government and citizens. It can help in corrective behaviour,” added Kothari.

With its 1.4 billion population and lagging healthcare infrastructure, Kothari said, preventing the spread of pandemic is the only feasible solution. “Our current law enforcement and delivery infrastructure need necessary support. Our main aim is to prepare India for turbulent times,” said the company's CEO.

Droneman.in is also looking at other applications such as using drones to quickly reach inaccessible areas and provide the aid.
Some other potential applications include scrutinizing people using thermal sensing to check body temperature, public surveillance for effective lockdown and even delivery of payload including medicines and essential items.

Police forces in Sangli in Maharashtra, and Guwahati in India have also turned to drone technology to enforce lockdown.

These drones have been supplied by ideaForge, a leading UAV maker  for defence, homeland security and industrial applications. The drones provide real-time intelligence to the command and control centre, local patrol vans and ground forces.

In case any anomalies in lockdown are observed, the patrolling vans or ground forces are immediately dispatched to the incident sites and citizens are urged to follow orders and maintain social distancing.