ideaForge Technology Limited, India's largest domestic drone manufacturer, announced this week that its Drone-as-a-Service offering, branded FLYGHT, has been deployed across more than 10 industries and government sectors since its 2022 launch. The company says demand has grown year-over-year as organizations look to aerial data platforms for operational decision-making rather than simply video surveillance.

FLYGHT operates as an app-based platform that handles on-demand booking, fleet deployment, AI-driven analytics, and incident workflow management. The model is designed for clients who need aerial intelligence without the overhead of managing their own drone operations. Customers pay on a per-use basis.

ideaForge's first DaaS customer was the Uttarakhand state government, which deployed the company's Q6 V2 UAV for public safety, traffic management, encroachment tracking, and urban mapping. Since then, the company has expanded into mining, power utilities, oil and gas, ports, fisheries, solar energy, real estate, coastal monitoring, and forest surveillance. In mining applications, the platform has been used for stockpile management, pilferage detection, and mine safety, including cases where aerial surveillance identified tunnel theft in progress. In the power sector, crews have used the system to flag structural corrosion and vegetation encroachment along high-tension transmission lines.

The platform has also been integrated with C-DAC's Emergency Response Support System, enabling what ideaForge describes as "Automated Aerial Dispatch," a workflow in which a drone can be deployed to an incident site within minutes of receiving a distress call.

In parallel, the company has introduced a franchise model in which local operators use FLYGHT software to manage ground-level drone operations using DGCA-certified ideaForge hardware. The company bills this as the first app-based drone franchise model in India.

"We developed our DaaS model because we realized that while organizations need aerial intelligence, managing a drone fleet isn't core to their business," said Sachin Pukale, AGM of product management at ideaForge. "This has now evolved into FLYGHT, an app-based ecosystem that automates everything from on-demand booking to deployment, advanced data analytics and incident workflow management."