Ajith-mentored team Dhaksha uses drones to disinfect public places

Dhaksha

, a team of researchers from Madras Institute of Technology, which won medals at the Drone Olympics, last year, is now helping the Tamil Nadu government cover large areas in spraying disinfectant and fight the spread of coronavirus.

Talking about it,

Arul Sengan

, a project associate of the team, says, “There are about 70 members in the team, headed by Dr K Senthil Kumar. We make all kinds of

drones

— for agriculture, surveillance, etc. Now, we are working in collaboration with the state government to spray disinfectants, especially where human accessibility is difficult. For this purpose, we’ve modified the drones with special nozzles to spray disinfectants. These drones are flown using petrol and can be continuously flown throughout the day. On Saturday, we covered around 3 lakh/sqm and sprayed almost 900 litres of disinfectant.”

Interestingly, the team is backed by Kollywood actor Ajith. “Whenever he is here in the city and free, he comes as a technical advisor. He might join us on this project as well if he’s free. Whenever he goes abroad, he manages to gather information on developments in the

UAV

(unmanned aerial vehicle) field and shares them with us. Recently, we developed drone taxi and he contributed a lot in its development,” says Arul.

Another team that is providing drone services to fight the pandemic is Garuda Aerospace, a start-up of Agni College of Technology, which has a mix of professionals and students. Vimal Raj Venkatesan from the team says, “Our first assignment was at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai. Now, we are planning to do it for another 30 days in hospitals across TN where COVID-19 patients are treated.”