Every year, farmers in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan are plagued by large insect swarms that threaten to destroy crops and cause major agricultural damage. Traditionally, they use sprayers mounted on tractors and fire tenders to spread insecticide across the affected areas, but now they’re trying out airborne technology to cover more ground, faster.

A fleet of drones developed by General Aeronautics, an India-based unmanned aerial systems (UAS) developer, is able to spray insecticide at height and in places where regular ground vehicles cannot reach. A typical drone flight can spray a 2.5-acre area in just 15 minutes.

When the coronavirus pandemic broke out, General Aeronautics also developed drones for large-scale sanitization and monitoring of COVID-19 hotspots across India. They were used for spraying disinfectant over residential areas, markets, roads and hospitals, as well as for surveillance and public safety announcements over speakers to help keep residents safe.

“Our drones have been in the frontline fight against COVID-19 across the country,” said Abhishek Burman, CEO of General Aeronautics. “The lessons we learned from the project will benefit us in our future product strategy supporting applications like transportation of packages including medical supplies, organs for transplantation and precision agriculture.”

All General Aeronautics’ cutting-edge technology is developed at speed using Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE® platform on the Cloud. This helps to accelerate the development time of its aircraft and explore more ways to apply its technology to a wider range of civilian, humanitarian and military projects.

Now, with all product design and manufacturing processes running on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, discover how the company is working more efficiently and cohesively. Read the full story here.