The DRDO NETRA-2026 seminar on electronic warfare, digital twin and mission-critical system design opened on Tuesday, drawing the armed forces, DRDO, ISRO, defence public sector undertakings, academia and industry to a two-day national meeting on engineering the future battlespace.

It runs on 11 and 12 August, with a hands-on workshop the day after, on 13 August.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation is hosting the event with the Association of Old Crows, India Chapter, alongside the industry partners Infinipoint, MathWorks, Ansys, Keysight and Synopsys, a line-up that pairs the country's electronics labs with the commercial toolmakers behind much of the work.

Dr B K Das, Director General (Electronics and Communication Systems), inaugurated it as Chief Guest. Manoj Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Electronics Limited, and Sunil Motawani of MathWorks were the Guests of Honour.

More than 200 participants have gathered for the two days.

What the DRDO NETRA-2026 seminar covers

The programme runs across electronic warfare, digital twin, artificial intelligence, radar, radio frequency systems, FPGA design, mission-critical systems and digital engineering. Organisers have put particular weight on advanced modelling, simulation, digital engineering and intelligent systems, and on using them to speed up the design, development, validation and deployment of mission-critical capabilities.

The idea is a common floor where serving officers, DRDO scientists, the defence PSUs, academics and company engineers trade operational perspectives and put next-generation defence technology in front of one another.

Electronic warfare and the digital twin

Electronic warfare is the thread that gives the seminar its host. The Association of Old Crows is the international professional body for the electronic warfare and electromagnetic spectrum community, and its India Chapter connects practitioners in the field at home.

A digital twin is a virtual replica of a system that engineers can test, break and refine in software before any metal is cut. In defence work it shortens the distance between a design on a screen and a platform that has been cleared for the field, which is why so much of the programme circles back to it.

For DRDO the ground is familiar. Over the past year it has taken anti-radiation strike weapons through validation and moved airborne early-warning systems into fresh production contracts, both inside the electronic and radar domains the seminar is convened to discuss.

Towards Aatmanirbhar Bharat

The DRDO NETRA-2026 seminar is pitched as a step towards closer work between the Services, DRDO, the defence public sector undertakings and private industry, and towards indigenous innovation, technology development and capability building for Aatmanirbhar Bharat. That sets it beside a wider run of indigenously designed defence hardware, from engines to sensors.

The industry partners

The partner names, MathWorks, Ansys, Keysight, Synopsys and Infinipoint, read as a roll call of the modelling, simulation, test and electronic-design tools behind modern defence engineering. Bharat Electronics, represented at the inauguration by its chief, remains a principal supplier of radar and electronic-warfare systems.

A workshop to close

The seminar gives way on 13 August to a hands-on workshop, meant to put contemporary tools, technologies and engineering methods directly in the hands of those attending. Two days of papers, then a third of practice.