This Indian Drone is “Built Like a Bird, Tested Like a Tank”: IdeaForge SWITCH

At last months Commercial UAV Expo, manufacturer IdeaForge introduced to the US market an Indian drone: one that’s been tried and tested across some of the most forbidding terrain in the world, and built to NDAA-compliance standards.  DRONELIFE spoke with IdeaForge’s GM of Marketing Kruthi Aramanamada about the SWITCH long-range, mapping and surveying UAV.

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The IdeaForge SWITCH UAV is a super-light fixed wing, offering a 2 hour flight endurance guarantee.  The drone has a swappable payload including a day payload with 25X zoom capabilities and a thermal imaging night payload.  SWITCH UAV also offers important security features.  IdeaForge doesn’t store any data on the cloud, and there is no data stored on the drone: “the data goes straight from the drone to the pilot,” says Kruthi.  With IdeaForge’s BlueFire Live™ solution, pilots can grant remote users access to control the payload – making the SWITCH UAV ideal for an application with central command and control monitoring several aircraft at once.

While it may surprise some customers that an Indian drone is built to NDAA-compliance standards, Kruthi says it makes sense- India has many of the same requirements.  With a sensitive shared border with China along the Himalayas, India also discourages the use of Chinese components in drone platforms used by military agencies.

Built Like a Bird, Tested Like a Tank

IdeaForge has a history of developing top class aircraft in India.  It’s 3 founders met at IIT – the Indian engineering school that has produced CEOs of some of the most influential companies in the world, including Twitter, Alphabet (Google) and IBM.  From the award-winning drone and autopilot that the team developed as students, the team released their first commercial aircraft in 2009.  Now, IdeaForge provides drones to the Indian army, paramilitary groups, public safety, and commercial enterprise.   “Every 6 minutes an IdeaForge drone takes off in India,” says Kruthi.  “That’s just in the commercial market – the applications we know about.”

With that kind of volume, IdeaForge drones have certainly been field tested, but Kruthi says that’s just the beginning.  The company says SWITCH UAV is “Built Like a Bird, Tested Like a Tank” due to the intense testing performed by their military and public safety customers.  “The Indian army is known for rigorous testing,” she says. “In India, we have landscapes ranging from glaciers to deserts and swamps, and that gives us a home advantage in having had our platforms externally tested in all kinds of environments.”

“In addition, these aircraft have successfully competed globally.  The Indian army has evaluated the SWITCH UAV against drones from Israel, US, Russia, and more – but SWITCH can do more than other drones in its weight class.”

SWITCH is the perfect fit for a large geography, like the US – and it works in a vast variety of temperatures and terrains,” says Kruthi.  “That makes it very relevant to the US market.”  For surveying, mapping, border security or linear asset inspection like pipelines, SWITCH UAV’s long flight endurance could be utilized in states from Florida to Alaska.

Read more about the Indian drone industry:

• The Survey of India: Garuda Aerospace Maps 7000 Villages by Drone in 1 Year
• ANRA Drone Tracking Solutions Demonstrated in India: Monitoring Small Drone Operations
• Determination to Be a Global Drone Hub Clear in Indias First Government Approved Drone Announcement