Unmanned systems have become a fast-growing pillar of India’s military capability, driven by lessons from recent conflicts and a push for indigenous design. Indian drones range from long-endurance surveillance platforms to expendable loitering munitions and experimental swarm systems.

Surveillance and reconnaissance

  • Long-endurance ISR: Israeli-origin Heron and Searcher UAVs, and the MQ-9B SeaGuardian / SkyGuardian for high-altitude, long-endurance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
  • Indigenous UAVs: the DRDO TAPAS-BH-201, Rustom and the earlier Nishant, plus the stealth Ghatak unmanned combat aerial vehicle under development.

Loitering munitions and tactical drones

Battlefield systems include the Nagastra and SkyStriker loitering munitions and a range of quadcopter and mini-UAV platforms used for reconnaissance and precision strike at the tactical level.

Swarms and counter-drone systems

India is investing in drone-swarm technology for saturation attacks and in counter-unmanned-aircraft systems (C-UAS) to detect, jam and neutralise hostile drones — an increasingly urgent requirement along the western border.

A growing private ecosystem

Backed by the iDEX innovation programme and Make in India, private firms such as ideaForge, NewSpace Research and Adani-Elbit are now central to India’s drone manufacturing base, complementing DRDO and the defence PSUs.