Garuda Aerospace: Leading PM’s vision of mapping villages in India

The Chennai-based drone start-up Garuda Aerospace successfully mapped 7,000 villages in Uttar Pradesh under the Svamitva Scheme. After winning the tender from the nodal agency, the Survey of India, Garuda Aerospace deployed large-scale mapping and digitization of land records in rural areas. According to the government, the project will empower landowners and farmers with accurate digital land certificates and a unique ID, enabling them to obtain a precise layout with all relevant information.

Garuda Aerospace intends to play a major role in carrying out the Prime Minister’s goal of digitizing land records and eliminating land and property disputes. To understand the immense magnitude of the project, we speak to Agnishwar Jayaprakash, Founder & CEO of Garuda Aerospace, and discussed various aspects of mapping villages.

The Swamitva Yojana project has ‘broadened Garuda Aerospace’s scope of work in surveying. The journey was difficult, as we faced environmental issues, field challenges, data collection from Tehsil, technical issues, and instances of miscommunications with the Lekhpal. However, we did not give up and overcame the hardships which came on our way. Fifteen of our teams were operating in the different districts of the State. Our perfect synchronization among different departments produced an incredible results due to which we have covered 7000 villages across six districts. Garuda Aerospace will emerge as a leader in the Survey as well with multi-rotor fixed-wing drones.” says Agnishwar Jayaprakash.

He further shares that Garuda Aerospace has deployed 15 fixed-wing drones for mapping, capable of operating 8-10 square kilometres per hour. “Our drones can withstand 0°- 50°C temperature. Their maximum operating altitude is 400m above ground level, while their launch altitude is 2500m above mean sea level. Equipped with a 24 MP camera sensor, it can be used for mapping plains and various terrain. Its accuracy of ground sampling distance is 5cm.”

Speaking of the technical specifications of the drones, Mr Jayaprakash informs that they deployed 15 multi-rotor drones for mapping use by Post Processing Kinematics (PPK) method.

“In this method, after collecting and uploading the location data, the GPS correction technology corrects the location and all the errors using Artificial Intelligence. The PPK technique is used in land surveying and drone mapping. These drones can cover up to a square kilometre, with a range of 4 kilometres and an endurance time of 40 minutes. Coming under the micro-category of drones, they are capable of carrying a payload of 2.5kg,” he added.

Mr Jayaprakash also reveals that in one year, Garuda Aerospace has covered 7000 villages in 6 districts in Uttar Pradesh with 15 teams and is confident of mapping 7000 more villages by the end of the tender, i.e., October 2022.