Today, the Indian Army represented by the Army Design Bureau (ADB) and the Drone Federation of India (DFI) signed an MoU to fasttrack the development of drone technology. DFI is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry-led body that promotes and builds a safer and scalable drone industry in India. 

With this collaboration, DFI and ADB have launched the Indian Army’s ‘Him-Drone-a-thin’ program which will accelerate invitations for proposals for development of drone-based solutions for supporting the operations of the Indian Army in challenging Himalayan terrains.

“This collaboration will help in providing a focused approach towards upgrading Indian drone manufacturing capabilities for meeting defense requirements. It will also enable companies to leverage the expertise on the subject within the Indian Army. We look forward to working together,” said Major General C. S. Mann, VSM, Additional Director General, Army Design Bureau.

In the next five years, DFI is estimating the drone industry to reach INR 50,000 crore in areas of agriculture, real estate and security.

Recently, the Adani group acquired a stake in General Aeronautics—concerning which it was reported that though they will focus on agriculture, they might branch out into civil and military applications in the future. 

In addition, the Indian Army recently announced that it is implementing an AI-based system for monitoring and surveillance of the borders which will reduce manual monitoring and equip soldiers with new techniques to detect potential adversaries.