New Delhi: The Indian Air Force (IAF) engaged more than 100 defence-industry professionals in New Delhi on October 21 to align indigenous drone development with its future operational requirements. Hosted in partnership with Drone Federation India (DFI) at Vigyan Bhawan, the workshop disseminated the IAF’s Unmanned and Autonomous Systems Roadmap, outlining priorities across 16 platform families.
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The roadmap categorised platforms into four tiers: Strategic, Operational, Tactical, and Distributed. It identified autonomy, manned-unmanned teaming and swarm operations as important directions for future air campaigns, providing industry, startups, academia and research institutions with greater visibility into the IAF’s capability priorities.
The initiative followed the IAF’s first Dronathon in September 2026, where domestic companies demonstrated unmanned and counter-unmanned systems under operational conditions. The earlier event examined capabilities including surveillance, reconnaissance, autonomous operations, swarming and electronic warfare, alongside the wider systems needed to support unmanned warfare.
The strategic significance lied in aligning private-sector research and investment with military requirements before development and procurement decisions. However, publication of a roadmap does not itself constitute a procurement commitment, and the workshop announcement does not specify platform-wise orders, funding allocations or induction timelines.
The IAF is signalling where India’s drone industry needs to develop capabilities next. Success will depend on turning those priorities into combat-relevant systems that can be produced at scale, integrated with existing forces and sustained in contested environments.
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