Five students from Scaler School of Technology’s (SST) Deep Tech Innovation Lab have built a hexacopter drone that has moved from the lab into a real-world civic application in Bengaluru.
Developed entirely in-house by Joe Daniel, Shreyansh Malviya, Raaghav Rathi, Pushkar Desai and Rama Krishnan, the drone was flown over Bengaluru in collaboration with the Electronics City Industries Association (ELCIA) to capture aerial footage for ELCIA’s annual Tech Summit and Drone AI Hackathon.
The hexacopter uses an indigenous chip as its main flight controller and can carry payloads of up to 2 kg. It is equipped with sensors for self-levelling and heading, along with GPS-based waypoint navigation for autonomous missions. During the field exercise, it carried a camera mounted on a two-axis gimbal to capture footage of traffic movement, waste accumulation and road conditions.
“Building a drone in the lab is very different from flying it in a real neighbourhood. Once we took it out of the lab to fly, we started seeing the city differently and understood how it really operates. It made me realise that the real challenge is not just building drones, but understanding how the information it captures can be used to solve real-world problems,” said Joe Daniel, a third-year student at SST.
ELCIA used the footage and data during its hackathon, where 183 teams comprising around 650–700 participants developed AI-led solutions for civic challenges.
“At ELCIA, we support innovation and startups… I believe that the concept that technology should be for public good,” said V Sriram Kumar, President & CEO, ELCIA.
Three finalist solutions will now be taken forward for further refinement and potential deployment.
