Drone innovations are no more a distant dream for garage tinkerers and tech enthusiasts
With a growing interest of makers in aerial robotics, IIT Bombay based nano-drone startup, Drona Aviation, is set to empower drone innovations at grass-roots level. Their latest product PlutoX, the ultimate aerial robotics kit for makers, is set to accelerate the development of drone ideas into reality.
“Being tinkerers ourselves, we’re well aware of the demotivating crashes, burdensome coding and other challenges that limit the scope of tinkering and innovating with drones. PlutoX was engineered particularly ensuring agility, durability and affordability for fellow tinkerers,” says Apurva Godbole, co-founder of this drone startup.
Using Cygnus IDE, PlutoX brings never-seen-before agile development in a single nano-drone DIY kit, making it easier to modify its activity by simply flashing a pre-written code through the Pluto phone app. Additionally, it enables existing drone tinkerers to accelerate their aerial robotics journey by optimizing hardware modularity with 16 GPIOs, all supported on an original, proprietary designed board.
“Instead of slowing down tinkerers with a cumbersome process to add hardware like cameras, sensors or even another board to their drones, we want to make development easy for them. We want to fuel their imagination and encourage them to explore more possibilities while tinkering,” says the CTO and co-founder, Prasanna Shevre.
According to a study by PwC on the commercial applications of drone technology, the emerging global market for business services using drones is valued at over $127 bn.
With 30,000+ students trained on drones and with the Pluto Racing League–India’s first nano-drone racing league, Drona Aviation has made a mark in the Indian drone industry already. They will now extend their efforts to tech and flying enthusiasts across the the world with the launch of PlutoX through their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, on August 8th, 2018.
