The shipping industry has come a long way in technological innovations, having seen many disruptions.

The Technology in Maritime (TIM) 2022 Conference Mumbai on 29th July 2022, brought to light many interesting presentations, one of which was by Captain Nikunj Parashar, CEO & Founder of Sagar Defence Engineering.

A Marine Vehicle Manufacturing Company, Sagar Defence aims to accelerate the world’s transition into autonomous systems by designing and developing unmanned and autonomous vessels for sea.

Developing one of its kind of robotic systems in India, and for the world, being the first personal aerial vehicle company, today Sagar defense utilizes vessel command-control technology, telemetry systems, and navigational instruments to provide security and surveillance services, land mapping and monitoring, thus enabling its clients to avail real-time monitoring of both land and sea data through unpredictable conditions.

Starting his journey as a cadet, and having completed 14 years out at the sea, Captain Parashar has taken up the task to disrupt aerial communications with personalized drone crafts being the first Indian who has built his own craft, sat in it, and flown it. He came up with the idea of building certain technologies which were weaponized and used for classified mocks, and that’s where the revolution took place.

He said, “As seafarers, we have a great understanding of the technical aspects, logistics, the cargo, the human life and how seafarers undergo many challenges at sea, and thus we can bring in a change much better than any technocrat because we understand how a ship master works, and so building technologies came into being, which will benefit the maritime community as well as the public at large.”

He added, “It is the first time that the Indian Navy is inducing Drones on warships. We have designed and developed the ‘Varuna’ drones, specifically made for the use of the Indian Navy, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself taking a keen interest in the project.

“We demonstrated a pilotless drone craft, which took off at Janpath around 2 ms in the air, flew another five meters over the ground, and landed back. The drone has the capacity of carrying one person in it. After the successful demonstration, we were awarded the contract to design defense drones for the Indian Navy and we have already delivered 30 drones.”

Sagar Defense is also developing a swarm for an underwater vehicle for counter defense for Indian Navy.

“The idea”, Parashar says, “is to monetize the aerial space immediately above the land. It is the only technology wherein drones can land and fly at 20 knots, which will play a great role in both Commercial shipping and marine defense. It could be a possibility that these aircraft assist ships in procurements to carry 100 -200 kgs.”

While Sagar Defence makes sure that there is no delay time, the systems are up and running and the efficiency is increasing.

Marex Media