Drone light show: IIT Delhi startup now performs at Djibouti I Day

NEW DELHI: The IIT Delhi incubated drone startup — Botlab Dynamics — which had lit up Delhi skies this Beating Retreat with a dazzling 1,000-drone light show is now being asked to conduct similar events abroad too. It recently organised a drone show at Djibouti independence day, June 27.
“Proud to share that IIT, Delhi, based startup Botlab Dynamics added colours to Djibouti’s sky with a drone light show during their Independence day celebrations.Indian drone startups have started taking small but firm steps on exporting products and services,” Drone Federation of India president Smit Shah said on social media.
A startup of two young IIT Delhi techies, Botlab Dynamics had dazzled onlookers at the grounds of their alma mater in one of the first drone light shows in the capital last September. A single computer on the ground had controlled 80 autonomous drones as they changed their colours, shades and shapes to create formations like the tricolour, human DNA and a vessel. Then this Republic Day, on Beating Retreat, they repeated the spectacular on a much grander scale with 1,000 drones over Raisina Hill. And now it has organised an event for an east African country too.
Drone light show are usually 8-10 minutes long during which they create 6-8 formations at an altitude of 50 metres, a key member of Botlab had recently told TOI. All the three critical components of a drone — flight control (its “brain”), GPS for precision position and motor control to determine rotor spin — are indigenously made.
The recently-held Tokyo Olympics had a drone light show by Intel where our planet earth floated gently above through a formation of 1,824 premium drones. Joe Biden-Kamal Harris victory was celebrated by a grand drone light show. Now Indian companies are getting on this bandwagon in a big way.