Hummingbird: Hawk-Eye Vision For Surveillance Drones

Superior optical systems are mandatory for defence devices like weapons and drones. Optoelectronics for weapons is a complex domain that has not been explored by many. India has been highly-dependent on Russia and other countries for most optoelectronic components.

- Paromik Chakraborty

Costs are quite high if a nation is dependent on others to take care of its own defence. Looking at this glaring lack of ecosystem in this field in India, Tonbo Imaging India stepped up to deliver.

Ankit Kumar, co-founder and chief technology officer, Tonbo Imaging India, says, “When we were building Tonbo in 2008, most companies were heavily focussed on e-commerce, software or outsourcing services. The idea was to create electro-optic systems for India as well as other emerging markets and, in the process, kickstart an ecosystem around it here. Our founding members have a good understanding of hardware, software and the sciences around any engineering field—mechanical, electrical, electronics, optics and so on—to work together and build these systems.”

One of Tonbo’s most interesting products is the Hummingbird series, which is a family of advanced gyrostabilised multi-band imaging gimbal systems for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

How Hummingbird works