Four female students of the Government Engineering College in Thrissur, Kerala, have developed a unique drone that can save lives whenever a natural disaster or calamity strikes. The drone, developed by final-year students S Lakshmi, P Manal Jaleel, VP Nandhana, and another unnamed student, also won the Final Year Electrical and Electronics Project Award for Engineering Colleges in Kerala. The event was held in Thiruvananthapuram recently, and the winners were selected from among 27 participating teams.
The funding for the drone project was provided by the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software. While the drone was developed experimentally by these women, it’s quite cost-efficient at ₹20,000. This is definitely cheaper than typical drones, which cost anywhere between ₹50,000 to ₹75,000. The new experimental drone can operate at an altitude of one kilometre, and has a range of two kilometres.
The core software of the drone can detect humans from isolated areas, and transmit real-time information to the authorities, making it a crucial piece of equipment during disasters like floods and fires. The current flight time of the drone is 15 minutes, but design changes can easily increase this duration, making it more effective still.
However, all four women behind this innovation have recently received employment at software companies—which suggests that the updates to the drone are most likely to be delayed. Yet, once upgraded and made available to the police and fire brigades, this drone clearly has the scope of revolutionising rescue operations.