What makes Indrajaal, India's first autonomous digital drone system unique

Developed by Hyderabad-based Grene Robotics it can protect an area of 1,000-2,000 sq km per system against threats such as UAVs, incoming weapons, loitering munitions, low RCS targets autonomously

India could soon have its own indigenous, unified, autonomous drone defence dome in place to throttle incidents such as the June 27 attack on the Jammu Air Force base using drones.

Developed by Hyderabad-based Grene Robotics and called Indrajaal, it can protect an area of 1,000-2,000 sq km per system against threats such as UAVs, incoming weapons, loitering munitions, low RCS targets autonomously. The company early this year signed a memorandum of understanding with navratan defence PSU Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) to develop jointly an air defence system that brings isolated Man-portable-air-defence (MANPAD) operators into networked environment.

MANPADS are forward deployed air defence systems that addresses the operational limitations of the forward area and assists the command centre to give real-time firing command to solders using AR and VR.

Gopi Krishna Reddy, executive director, Grene Robotics believes that the days of manual weapons and point-based defence systems are long gone and modern warfare will be driven by use of technology such as AI and robotics. His argument is that point defence anti-UAV systems will not be able to counter and protect large defence bases.

“A minimum of 300 systems are required to be deployed to protect the entire western border and this is financially not a viable option. On the contrary 6-7 sectorally deployed Indrajaal systems with their seamless connectivity can protect the entire western border,” said Reddy.

Autonomous defence/weapon systems is the third revolution of the warfare and Indrajaal's design principles leverage a combination of 9-10 modern technologies powered by Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Robotics that is capable of identifying, assessing, deciding, acting and evolving autonomously in real-time. Whether the threat is single or multiple or a combination of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Low- radar cross section (RCS), Loitering munitions and such, Indrajaal is capable of countering all such threats. It has the ability to factor in real-time situational awareness, cater to distributed, decentralised and mobile environment, and create an integrated meshed network. Importantly, it has the ability to integrate with all current weapons suite and infrastructure, said the company.

“We believe that if you want to counter AI driven weapons from enemy, then we also need to respond with AI systems. There are certain areas that can be better handled by AI and robotics than human’s especially in warefare,” said Kiran Penumacha, MD, Grene Robotics.

The drone dome can certainly not be compared to Israel’s Iron dome, but it is the first step of using an indigenously developed system for the first line of air safety defence system. “I think it’s time for Indian defence to open up and accept indigenously developed system. We feel that no country will ever sell their most cutting edge technology to other country. It is best if we develop our own systems with the know-how of our terrains requirements,” added Reddy.

Grene Robotics has put in 12 years of research and development to come up with cutting edge technology solutions in AI and robotics for enterprises and focuses on robots-as-a-services. Of this eight years into developing AC6ISRT capabilities in the form of Defence OS. The company’s flagship product GreneOS is a unified Operating System that would be a replacement to enterprise systems in Fortune 1000 companies and Government offices across the world. GreneOS will be able to manage connected robots to maximum efficiency autonomously.

“Our focus in the defence sector is a year old. We have spent the last decade or so in perfecting the technology, but last year we also started to invest in getting the right advisory board who can help us get access to the defence sector,” added Penumacha. Grene Robotics advisory board consists of retired defense scientific advisor, deputy chief of army staff, BEL Director and AirForce vetran who was instrumental for designing India's most comprehensive command and control system for the Indian Air Force called IACCS.

The company had raised its first round of funding in 2020 from HNIs.