Building on the power of R&D, Parova Technologies offers customised design and development services for drones.
With a unique logo of a flying fish, Andhra Pradesh-based startup Parova Technologies offers drone customisation and development services for startups, college clubs, and university students. Founder Rohith Dacharla began his journey in the fourth year of his software engineering course from a small lab in 2017. Unable to pursue pilot training due to financial constraints, Dacharla, harnessed his passion for aerial vehicles to establish Parova Technologies in 2019 for end-to-end research and development services. Co-founder Venkata Kamesh started contributing his expertise in avionics and subsystems in 2023 to complement Dacharla’s strengths in industrial design and innovation.
The startup covers everything from conceptualisation to fabrication and assembly of drones based on client specifications and budget constraints, for agricultural use, political rallies, or defence applications. “We design drones based on their ideas, considering initial requirements, and provide the option of choosing between affordable imported components or entirely made-in-India products,” says Dacharla.
The startup also offers consultancy services for drone design and development, guiding the entire process—design, testing, training, and licensing assistance, depending on various categories or stages of development of a product. In case of a complete product, they provide procurement assistance, gather technical details, offer consultation on potential upgrades and extra charges on the imports and assembly for the same. For a company with a semi-formed idea, the company helps to understand requirements, components, and pricing, discussing the option of importing versus local production.
Highlighting the R&D capabilities as their strength, Dacharla recognises the importance of originality in design instead of merely replicating designs from other countries. Prompted by the idea to come up with a unique design for propellers of one of their clients, Dacharla came up with a design that exhibited higher efficiency than conventional propellers by introducing ridges on the propellers, guiding airflow in a specific direction.
“While the concept is straightforward and can be found in many research articles, its implementation on a propeller resulted in a propulsion efficiency boost of over 100%, and could potentially revolutionise commercial aviation. Currently, discussions are underway with the HAL team in Bengaluru to explore testing possibilities, as our in-house capabilities may not be sufficient for comprehensive testing,” he explains.
With customisation and design services being the primary business model, Dacharla sees this as a way to fund and strengthen his R&D capabilities to establish a network of commercial logistic aircraft for drones, for sustainable and on-demand logistics in India. This is where he explains the meaning of the flying fish logo,
“The flying fish, despite being a fish, can fly above the water surface to avoid predators and maintain stability. We aim to replicate this concept by building a network of drones connecting cities, facilitating efficient and interconnected logistics to maintain a balance between ground-level operations and high-altitude flights,” he discloses.
The company is currently focused on designing the first version of its commercial logistics vehicle, a 100kg payload unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with vertical takeoff and a fully electric engine.
According to Dacharla, “Building drones, and especially a network of drones, involves significant expenses and requires extensive R&D and technical support. By working as a design services provider, we are strengthening our abilities, while funding our activities to work towards our end goal.”
Navigating through challenges related to budget constraints, Dacharla reiterates his end-goal as developing Bajrang, but adds that the immediate focus is to explore potential collaborations with companies specialising in telecommunications and long-range transmission to engage in transfer of technology agreements, to streamline its R&D efforts, through MoUs or patent licensing arrangements.
“This will allow us to implement or manufacture their technologies on their behalf. We’ve received proposals from global companies seeking manufacturing facilities in India, and we are open to facilitating and operating such facilities for them. We are actively considering such proposals,” says Dacharla.
