What Are Certified Drone Parachutes? In Conversation with Pankaj Akula, CEO, Paras Aerospace

Paras Aerospace, India announced an exclusive partnership with ParaZero Israel. Various systems have already received compliance from International Body ASTM as per Standard Specification for Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) Parachutes. This internationally acceptable certification enables the system to extend unmatched safety. We talked to Pankaj Akula, CEO, Paras Aerospace to get more insights about the partnership and what will it mean.

What does this partnership mean? Will it make the drones better?

To give you an overview, everything started with the announcement of Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi this month regarding the relaxation of rules which are called the drone rules 2021. So which is basically trying to revolutionize the sector or create recognition of this sector of Drones in the Indian Ecosystem or in the Indian financial space. I was an ex-scientist with the Government of India working in the development of rose systems across missiles, rockets then autopilots for aircraft and transport aircraft. A general person or anybody or any user of these drones needs to understand about aerial vehicles is that when a terrestrial vehicle stops what simply happens it will stay where it is but when an aerial vehicle stops first it will crash itself and second it will fall on someone's head and damage the property and can cause an enormous amount of liability to both the property or the life. In such cases, because this is one particular space that needs ample recognition because aerial vehicles which are going to carry weights from 2 kg to anything under 300 kg at an altitude of 400 feet, so they pose an enormous threat not only to the drone or the life, but they pose a threat in this issue is not resolved immediately like what is the safety if something happens the parachute or safety systems should deploy and protect everything and now this is the case of one drone. Now imagine a scenario, you are having some tens of drones operating in the same way. This comes under the concept called Highway in the Sky. So a Highway in the Sky, when you have 10 to 20 drones on the terrestrial highway or even in the sky and something happens. It is going to be a catastrophic serial effect, even if one drone crashes. What shouldn't happen is if some accident happens in the sky, it should not impact someone sitting at a home or sitting on somebody else's platform, or it should not imbed someone else's life. The vehicles themselves should be protected with inherent safety. The systems that we are discussing are primarily the safety systems for drone crashes for a variety of reasons. Like sensor miscommunication, or you suddenly fly near a power plant for some task. Drones are a lot of sensors in an unmanned vehicle, so this gets recalibrated and what happens should it fall or crash someone's head. If something like that happens then the safety of the drones sector, whatever is the visions of this drone sector will not be able to sustain.

How are security drones different from normal drones?

Fundamentally there are multiple differences between a security drone and a regular commercial industry drone, but I will give you the top-level differences. Firstly, given the commercial industrial drones, the restriction is there to fly until 400 feet, that's the drone airspace but that is not the technology limitation. Technically, the drone that carries weight commercially can fly to a distance of 15 kilometres, and even vertically upward it can enter the terrestrial civilian airspace where our regular aeroplanes are flying. The only thing that brings it down is the wind velocity so as you rise up high in the altitude, there is something known as the wind resistance to the aircraft, so the drone is able to withstand so much wind that it can keep on rising in the altitude. Another thing is that what are the military and surveillance inputs that are to be considered, so first thing is that is ruggedness, ruggedness in terms of environmental protection with respect to air, moisture, solids and electromagnetic interference, encryption, payload capacity, payload rangers so each and every item has got a uniqueness or a difference, so yes on atop level they are different but operationally or anything they seem to be the same.

The normal drones or the commercial drones that are out there, except for the technical build differences, can be used for small-scale surveillance.

What is the ASTM certification and why is it important?

I will try and put in simple terms, across the world there are a lot of certification organizations in Aerospace. They are public standards, what is a standard. The standard is also mentioned in the documents that these standards are published for UAV parachutes for safety, so this particular journalist from CNN approaches FAA, they file an application for a type certificate mentioning that this aircraft is to go with this parachute and how are they going to show it. First, this ASTM Certificate will give you a set of guidelines, which is a very detailed document, where you have to comply with each and every aspect so that at the end of the day it is designed as per the specifications. Then what is to be done when you go to the certifier, you are going to get something like a means of compliance or means of evidence. So you have to perform the price for 50 flights, and you have to show a variety of crash data or sudden failure data where the system is going to functionally be proven. Aerospace Certification is decided by evidence, as Aerospace safety is the most critical. Any simple crash is going to result in an enormous amount of loss, both public and private. They will ask for the evidence that they install this parachute on this drone for the flight test and get back with the data. While doing so when you are having a certificate like ASTM, the organization already is approved, and they go to the certifier and share that they are using the ASTM product and the certification data. Therefore, please consider our data and give us the type certificate.

Will the drones carry any weapons, or are they just surveillance drones?

Fundamentally, at this point in time what we are addressing or discussing this product is the safety parachute for drones. What you are asking is the type of drones, whether surveillance or what is the difference between surveillance and military drones. So obviously yes, though this is not connected with the present partnership, however, I will try to answer as a general dialogue that yes that there are drones that are considered as some kind of automobile thing so there are more than 150 innumerable number of configurations who can do mapping and everything like to start with what we also do at Paras Aerospace is called Industry fold-out zero applications. Industry fold-out zero is basically what we are trying to do for the next generation of the industrial revolution with drone automation. Drones have become more like the personal list of computers. The intelligence of the drone is decided by the algorithms that are running. That's a simple way to put it and yes these drones come in a variety of formats some carry weapons, some carry cameras, some carry radar, some carry ammunition, some carry a lot of other things, they can carry delivery. So the number of applications is enormous and whatever it is at the end of the day whatever is flying, there is a need for a safety mechanism and that is what the systems we are providing as the parachute. It is not just a parachute, it is a complete network-based algorithm that has been established over ten years of effort, so it is not just a simple parachute that just opens on a press or something it is a whole set up of very complex algorithms running to decide because there is a regular unit to decide what's a crash and what is a regular flight of an aircraft, so that is what is the unique patented feature of the technology, there is a technical way by which you will distinguish that. So we have parachutes for everything and drones carry everything from sensors to weapons.

What is the future of drones in India?

Ok let me talk about the published or referred literature. In the year 2019-20 there were international reports for the market of drones in India, so this is estimated at 885 million dollars per year. This is as per the FICCI EY reports. They have analysed the Indian Drone Ecosystems, sector and everything and annually with the CAGR of somewhere 25 -30 members are there in the report's this is the first thing. Second thing, globally the business is growing at a very large scale where we are seeing numbers crossing more than 30 billion dollars. It is just that the government has to enable the proper regulations simply and then the drones will be taking over, or it is going to be a new ecosystem. Treat any drone as a computer, they are intelligent, they have the processing power, they have everything and the other difference with the computer is that they are like flying computers, they have even far better power than a regular laptop, and they have CPU, Graphics Cards, everything. Essentially for performance and computations added to that, they can move, so that is going to be the next revolution in drones, and it is already happening all over the world. It is a very sensitive sector until we have our government recognize that it is not an easy sector to drive or the technology you make. So the good news is the industry welcomes this, the government also acknowledges that this will create an enormous amount of opportunities be it the drone sector or safety systems, whatever you name.