Drones To Support Lockdown Measures, Support Healthcare Workers

As social distancing is the only way to stay safe during the coronavirus pandemic, drone solutions startup FlytBase has come up with an innovative method to ensure minimum exposure to the virus. The Pune and Silicon Valley-based startup is now offering free remote drone operations through FlytNow Pro to users involved in public health initiatives working against coronavirus and Covid-19.

“Whether it’s helping the police manage lockdowns, providing situational awareness to first responders or supplying medicines to last-mile clinics, drones are likely to play an important role in helping mitigate COVID-19,” Nitin Gupta, FlytBase CEO and founder, said.

The company has decided to not charge for FlytNow Pro services until May 2020. The solutions will include drone live streaming over 4G, LTE and 5G networks to remote control of the drone and camera gimbal.

FlytBase believes that drones can be an ideal solution to minimise contact and ensure there is enough distance between people. The company, in its press release, added that the drones can be used for aerial monitoring, ensuring emergency response, delivering medicines and replacing human intervention from jobs and tasks that put humans at risk of exposure.

Besides this, the company believes that to ensure that people are adhering to the government advisories and guidelines with regards to coronavirus, the drones can be equipped with several additional features — beacons, loudspeakers and sirens —  to serve as the public safety aid. FlytBase added that it can also send live video feeds to Covid-19 control centres, warning people of the need to stay indoors, and spray disinfectants.

Founded in 2017, FlytBase was founded by Nitin Gupta, the company had raised an undisclosed amount in seed round from US-based, early-stage venture capitalists and angel investors in December 2019.

Drones And Healthcare System In India

In October 2019, Telangana government, along with Apollo Hospital and the World Economic Forum (WEF), had laid out a plan to run a six-month pilot called ‘Medicines from the Sky’, under which drones were to be used for last-mile delivery of blood and medical samples in the state. The pilot was supposed to start off in India in 2020.

Whereas, Uttarakhand has had a first-hand experience of it. In June 2019, a drone developed by Cdspace Robotics Limited was used to successfully deliver a single unit of blood worth INR 10 Lakh from a remote primary health centre located in Uttarakhand’s Tehri district.

In an attempt to leverage several use cases drones come with, the Indian government has decided to give commercial-use of drones a shot. Besides this, India’s science and technology ministry announced a project to digitally map the country with a resolution of 10 cm, using drones and technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data.

As per a global market intelligence and advisory firm BIS Research, the Indian drone market is expected to be valued at $885.7 Mn by 2021, while the global opportunity is estimated to touch $21.47 Bn during this period.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.