Devika Chandrasekaran and her younger brother Devan Chandrasekaran from Cherthala in Alappuzha, both engineering graduates, ventured into agriculture drone engineering in 2020 after their mother, who used to cultivate paddy on 10 acres of leased land, suffered multiple yield losses following the 2018 Kerala floods.
Three years later, FIA QD10, an agriculture drone, an unmanned aerial vehicle developed by Fuselage Innovations, an agri-tech firm founded by the duo at Maker Village near Kochi, has received ‘Type certification’ from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
“Our initial efforts were to use satellite data to increase productivity. But it did not produce the desired result. Using drones for foliar application of micronutrients and so on, we found that productivity increased significantly. We developed the final version of FIA drone after testing and piloting over 50,000 hectares of farmland in south India. We aimed to develop an agriculture drone affordable to Indian farmers and we are happy to be part of a very small number of companies to manufacture one under the Make in India Initiative,” says Devan, managing director of Fuselage Innovations.
