Students design ‘sounding’ drones to drive jumbos back into forests

Garuda Aerospace, a company formed by the students, has designed a first-of-its-kind unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), equipped with an audio amplifier system that produces different sound bursts to scare the elephants and drive them back into the forests. 

The company has already supplied two such devices to the state forest department. Training has been provided to around 10 department officials and the company is confident that their product would resolve the problem of villages close to the forests.

“As farms and plantations have expanded into forest areas, elephants are forced to stray into villages in search of food. On such occasions, there is always a threat of humans being killed by the pachyderms,” said Vimal Raj V, CEO of the company and added that the UAV has been designed by students of Agni College of Technology in Chennai. 

“The drone is mostly made of a rigid carbon composite material equivalent to steel and can withstand higher loads,” Manu Stephen, project head said.

He said the drone has been equipped with custom-made high-power amplifier, which can produce different sound up to a range of 130 Db. 

“The UAV is also equipped with 30X optical zoom higher resolution camera,” he said, adding that high-capacity batteries facilitate a flight time of up to 25 minutes. 

Stephen said the live downlink feature provides real-time access to the aircraft feed via a monitor on ground. The feature enables the drone operator to see the events recorded.