Flying on a Budget

Five years ago, drone flying was the domain of the US military and wealthy hobbyists. Yet, within the last year and a half, researchers at the Swandiri Institute in Pontianak, West Kalimantan have built 13 unmanned aircraft, capable of, among other feats, making near-instantaneous maps of Dayak customary lands to show how they overlap with mining and logging concessions. One drone costs the team Rp6 million (US$ 500), a paltry sum for technology that until recently was too expensive for most to afford.

The researchers, Arif Munandar and Irendra Rajawali, who is known as Radja, use Chinese replicas of American drones and online do-it-yourself forums to build, program and fly drones that capture aerial imagery as spatial data. "Before the Chinese cracked the code enough to create a replica, a drone could cost up to Rp1.5 billion in Indonesia," Arif said.