New Delhi: The Indian Air Force chief, Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh, said on Thursday that India needs to move faster on developing indigenous drone and unmanned systems technology. He warned that any delay in adopting critical defence technologies effectively amounts to losing out on them altogether.
ACM Singh was speaking at a defence workshop hosted by the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM) in New Delhi. As earlier reported by RNA Media, the same event brought together senior military officers, defence manufacturers and industry experts to discuss indigenisation and emerging defence technologies.
ACM Singh said talks were under way with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and other government departments to build a system capable of reliably telling apart authorized drones from rogue ones. This, he explained, was necessary to avoid situations where the Air Force accidentally shot down its own drones or failed to intercept a genuine threat in time.
The Air Force chief also addressed the challenge of integrating manned aircraft with a widening range of unmanned platforms sharing the same airspace, from small microdrones to larger uncrewed systems resembling full aircraft. All users of that airspace, he noted, would need shared situational awareness and clearly defined control protocols going forward.
He added that as drones become smaller and lighter, their payloads, whether weapons, cameras or sensors, would also need to be miniaturized to match. Genuine self-reliance, ACM Singh argued, would only be achieved once every component in these systems was built domestically, since continued reliance on foreign suppliers left India exposed to potential supply disruptions.
On the pace of innovation, ACM Singh said no single agency could resolve the challenges involved in building safe, scalable and reliable drone systems on its own. He called for a coordinated effort involving the armed forces, industry, researchers, regulators, academic institutions and quality-assurance bodies.
He also pointed to current limitations in drone technology, noting that individual drones cannot match the payload capacity of larger manned platforms and that failure rates during launches remain high. Certification agencies, he stressed, would need to play a central role in testing these systems and supporting the development of related technologies, including stealth features and battlefield survivability measures.
On cybersecurity, ACM Singh underlined the need for secure, sovereign data networks and indigenous artificial intelligence capabilities, describing them as essential building blocks for genuine self-reliance in India’s defence technology base.