NEW DELHI: How about a pizza being delivered at your home by an UAV ( Unmanned Aerial Vehicle )? Or getting a courier through this flying machine? Or spying with a UAV as small as a butterfly which perches itself on a windowsill? Sounds like sci-fi ? Experts say this could well become a reality.

While UAVs have been widely used in the West for policing, oil pipeline inspection and detecting illegal immigrants, in India, they are mainly used by the armed forces (eg, Heron, Lakashya, Nishant) for intelligence gathering and surveillance. But this is changing. Increasingly, they’re being used for civilian purposes and are akin to God’s eye in the sky.

Teal Group Corporation, a US aerospace consultancy, predicts that UAVs will be the most dynamic growth sector of the aerospace industry, with spending going up from the current $5.2 billion annually to $11.6 billion, totaling over $89 billion in the next decade. Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis, Teal Group, told TOI via email, “We see a growing market in India — 50 medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAVs, 60 Navy UAVs, 70 Air Force tactical UAVs, 100 Army tactical UAVs and 980 mini-UAVs over the next decade.”

Recently, UAVs kept vigil as Narendra Modi flagged off the Jagannath rath yatra. They were also deployed in Kaziranga National Park to protect one-horned rhinos from poachers and have been procured by Mumbai police. Earlier, only government agencies such as DRDO, National Aeronautical Laboratory and Hindustan Aeronautical Limited ( HAL ) made UAVs, but now even private companies are jumping on the bandwagon.

Mumbai-based Idea Forge has made 'Netra', a UAV weighing less than 1.5 kg. Amardeep Singh, its chief marketing officer, says, “We have given over 200 demonstrations to various companies. UAVs can be made to hover over an area, zoom in and stream live video. Netras can fly 2-3 km away and up to 300 m high.”

In HAL, a special team has been formed to design, develop and market them. “We have sold 35 UAVs so far. They can fly a distance of 100 km and an altitude of 6.5 km,” says a source. Their costs vary from tens of millions of dollars (‘Global Hawk’) to a few thousands.

According to Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur VM (retd), Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Air Power Studies, Delhi, “There are many classes of UAVs — HALE which flies above 30,000 ft; MALE which flies between 20-30,000 ft; micros which can be carried by one person and minis which fit into a palm. The US Air Force has more personnel training to be UAV operators than pilots. Even International Civil Aviation Organisation is framing rules to permit UAVs to fly international.”

With UAVs sending data without loss of lives, a cockpit or a pressurised cabin, they are easy come, easy go. While the next step for India will be UCAVs (unmanned combat aerial vehicles) or drones, Bahadur says UAVs can be used here for aerial news broadcasting, crop monitoring, aerial shots in films and infrastructure inspection of nuclear sites.

The world is literally at its feet.