India’s map, the national flag, Mahatma Gandhi – these are just some of the patterns formed by 1000 drones at the Beating the Retreat ceremony at the national capital. This was the first time that an extravagant drone show took place at this event. The team behind this massive feat was Botlab Dynamics – a drone technology startup that was incubated at IIT Delhi. 

Analytics India Magazine caught up with Dr Sarita Ahlawat, one of the three co-founders of Botlab Dynamics. 

How it all started

Botlab Dynamics was incubated in IIT Delhi. After five years of the incubation period, the startup will now be moving out to a commercial building in the college campus and operate full-fledged. “The usual incubation period is usually three years. But because we are hardware setup that is very resource-intensive and takes longer to mature, we put out a request, and IIT Delhi allowed us to stay beyond five years,” tells Dr Ahlawat.

How the team of three co-founders, Tanmay Bhunkar, Anuj Kumar Barnwal, and Dr Sarita Ahlawat came together to work on Botlab Dynamics is an interesting story. The startup was founded by Tanmay Bhunkar, a former IIT Delhi student. While the company was formally incorporated at the Technology Business Incubator Unit in IIT Delhi in 2016, the foundation was laid much earlier in 2012. Bhunkar was soon joined by his IIT Delhi roommate and classmate Anuj Barnwal. Both had decided against taking up high-paying and lucrative jobs and instead decided to take on the tough yet exciting life as entrepreneurs.

Co-founders of Botlab Dynamics

Dr Ahlawat had then just moved back from the US and was already working on a separate project. A marathon runner, Dr Ahlawat bumped into Bhunkar during one of her morning jogs at the IIT Delhi grounds. “I have always been interested in building tech. When I met Tanmay, I was impressed with their work, even if it came at the expense of giving up lucrative opportunities. Another thing that I understood was that they have dedicated themselves to a field that is not very easy. For the outside world, with IIT, you have access to all resources, but it is a fact that working in hardware technology is extremely hard and expensive. It was even challenging six years back when we started,” she said.

In the first three years of operation, Botlab Dynamics was completely focused on building technology for the Indian Armed Forces. The team took its first swarm of drones to Pokhran. They also visited other major Army bases likes Udhampur, Sri Ganganagar, and Twang. But the challenge here was that the Indian Army follows NCNC – No commitment, no loss policy. The cost has to be borne by the company. “We did not have the resources to scale up this way, and in 2019, we decided to venture into drone light show, which would help us earn some revenue,” said Dr Ahlawat.

To do this, the team shrunk the size of their usual drone to fit in the palm. To build drones of this customised size, the team had to build the components themselves – flight controller, motor controller, and the overall design. The team took two years to complete the miniaturisation of these drones, passing through several phases of iteration. A video of a drone pyramid posted by the team went viral, and they were contacted by the Ministry of Defence. “We built a pyramid pattern using 50 drones. The MoD asked if we could scale up to 1000 drones for the Beating the Retreat celebration. We jumped at the opportunity, and within the next six months, we were able to achieve this,” said Dr Ahlawat.

Botlab Dynamics used swarm technology to put up an amazing show. Dr Ahlawat says that what a single drone can do, multiple drones can do better. These drones in a swarm are dynamic in nature and communicate with each other to make decisions. With this technology, a single operator can control multiple drones. Dr Ahlawat adds that swarm technology is poised to become pathbreaking for any sector.

Challenges and opportunities

Botlab Dynamics started with three people who worked alone for a year; the team now has over 40 teams of engineers. The team is planning to scale up further.

“There are more than 60 startups in this drone tech domain, each targeting sectors like defence, heavy payloads, surveillance. We stood out for two reasons – first, we were investing in our own hardware and building everything in-house; secondly, we were specifically in drone light show, there is no other startup that is addressing this area,” told Dr Ahlawat.

That said, building drone for any application is capital intensive. There is a lack of infrastructure in India, and we don’t have the capacity to build batteries, motors and propellers. As per Dr Ahlawat, the biggest problem is the chip shortage which has brought the whole world to its knees in the last two years. She predicts that this problem will persist for this year, too, and only by 2023 we might be able to have some relief.

Botlab Dynamics could work around these problems because they had the skills to work around with the available resources. Right now, the talent pool in drone technology is very limited. “We have to think of the whole ecosystem. It is a very difficult domain and requires specific skills. We have a lot of engineers, but only a few are interested in hardware. We need to find the right talent. At our company, we trained our staff for six months to make them efficient in the task. Many people are deterred as they feel that the payoffs are very limited,” she added. 

There are a few centres of excellence that offer drone technology, and there are a few others that are under talk. But overall, the training in this domain is largely theoretical while it actually requires a lot of practical exposure. Dr Ahlawat says that we need a complete overhaul of the hardware ecosystem. “If we see more pure hardware companies doing well, we will also have colleges offering specialised courses,” she suggested.

Policy liberalisation and future prospects

In 2021, the Indian government introduced new liberalised Drone Rules. Under this, the government did away with a lot of red tapes, which delayed project launches. The number of rules was reduced from 25 to merely six. The goal is to transform the core sectors like logistics, mining, surveillance, transportation, defence, law, and emergency response – and make India a global hub for drones.

As per Dr Ahlawat, despite the current challenges, the future of drone technology seems very bright. She believes that swarm technology will play a big role in defence.