1K drones to light up dark sky at 'Beating The Retreat' ceremony on Jan 29

New Delhi, Jan 22 (IANS) A '1,000 Drones Light Show' will light up the dark skies at the 'Beating the Retreat Ceremony' on January 29, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology Jitendra Singh said on Friday.

India will be the 4th country after China, Russia and the UK to carry out such a large-scale show with 1,000 drones, he said.

"A start-up supported by the government in association with the Ministry of Defence has conceptualised the novel 'Drone Show' to commemorate the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (the 75th year of Independence). The drone show will be 10 minutes long in duration and will showcase government achievements @ 75 through many creative formations in the dark sky," Singh said.

The start-up he mentioned is Botlab Dynamics Private Limited, which is supported by the Technology Development Board (DTDB) under the Department of Science & Technology (S&T) and incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D), a release from the Ministry of Science & Technology said.

Drone technology has come a long way from delivering vaccines to difficult areas to lighting up the Rajpath during Beating the Retreat Ceremony, Singh said, and added: "The project has been developed indigenously within the country, developing all the necessary components, including both hard wares and soft wares such as the flight controller (brain of the drone); precision GPS; motor controller; Ground Control Station (GCS) algorithms etc."

Secretary, DST, S Chandrasekhar said, to give a boost to start-ups eco-system, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently declared January 16 as the 'National Start-up Day' on the special occasion of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, when India is celebrating 75th Year of Independence and the Government of India's flagship initiative 'Start-up India' completed 6th successful year of supporting the Start Up movement in the country.

He said, Botlab Dynamics Private Limited was financially supported for the project 'Design and Development of a Reconfigurable Swarming System Consisting of 500-1,000 Drones for 3D Choreographed Drone Light Shows'.

TDB's Rajesh Kumar Pathak stated that "Botlab is one of such unique Start-ups, which will play a significant role in taking the drone manufacturing sector to new levels."