A robotics and drone company has claimed that it has operated the longest drone flight of 51 km in India to survey the pipeline of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) in Haryana.
Akash Sinha, founder and CEO of Omni-Hansa Robot Technologies, told PTI that the 51-km-long flight of Omni-Hansa V5 took place on November 3.
“I believe the last longest drone flight in India was 42 km,” he said.
He said the entire flight – from take off to landing – was fully autonomous, meaning it was on autopilot.
“We had a tracker mechanism on the drone. We could track it on our 4G network with our tracker,” he said.
He said that HPCL wants to increase the range of Omni Hansa V5 to 100-200 kms.
The Omni Hansa V5 can take off and land like a helicopter so it doesn’t need a runway. However, once it is in the air, it flies like a plane, Sinha said.
This drone is called a hybrid fixed-wing VTOL (vertical take off and landing) drone, he explained.
He claimed, “We successfully completed India’s longest drone flight. We flew the drone for 51 km for one of our pipeline client HPCL. It was a BVLOS (beyond line of sight) flight. This is a record in India.”
He said the flight was to survey HPCL’s pipeline running between Delhi and Haryana.
“It (pipeline) starts from Bahadurgarh (in Haryana),” he said.
He said that HPCL officials were also present during the flight demonstration.
The flight went to a maximum altitude of 400 feet as per the rules of aviation regulator DGCA.
Sinha said OmniPresent has registered a growth of 100 per cent in the last one year and is expected to grow three to five times in the next 3-4 years.
Company goal. to reach the goal of ₹1,000 crore revenue in the next four years, he said.
Currently, the company is also working with Indian e-commerce giants who are looking to deploy drones for the delivery of items.
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