Indian Air Force‘s ‘Dronathon’ is currently underway at the Pokhran Field Firing Range in Jaisalmer. The IAF sees unmanned systems as a genuine complement to manned aviation, giving commanders more options to extend the reach, persistence and flexibility of air operations. Through Dronathon, participating companies are demonstrating their Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) at Pokhran, spanning surveillance and reconnaissance, autonomous operations, swarm technologies, electronic warfare and counter-drone systems. The real emphasis this year is shifting from simple tech demos to actual operational effect, testing how reliably these systems perform under contested, demanding conditions.Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit, Vice Chief of the Air Staff inaugurated the event, with senior officials from the Ministry of Defence, HQ Integrated Defence Staff, the Army and BSF attended the event. Alongside the inauguration, Air Marshal Dixit also released the air force’s UAS Roadmap, a document designed to give Indian industry, academia and research bodies far clearer visibility into the Air Force’s future capability priorities, so their innovation efforts stay aligned with what the IAF actually needs going forward. The air force has listed some of its requirements in the Technology Perspective and Capability Roadmap (TPCR) released last year.The IAF sees unmanned systems as a complement to manned aviation, giving commanders more options to extend the reach, persistence and flexibility of air operations. Through Dronathon, participating companies are demonstrating their systems at Pokhran, spanning surveillance and reconnaissance, autonomous operations, swarm technologies, electronic warfare and counter-drone systems. The real emphasis this year is shifting from simple tech demos to actual operational effect, testing how reliably these systems perform under contested, demanding conditions.One standout element at display is the Vayu UTtaM, its indigenously developed multi-mode unmanned traffic management system, which tracked both military and civil UAS in real time. Beyond its obvious military use, this technology has clear civilian applications too, from managing increasingly congested airspace to identifying rogue drones near critical infrastructure and airports.The Army, notably, has also in the past run similar programs. Just weeks earlier, it wrapped up its own Surya Spiti Challenge and Dronathon 2025 in Himachal Pradesh’s high-altitude Spiti region, testing drones from across India in some of the most punishing terrain the country has to offer. That event, much like the IAF’s edition, was designed to pull in innovators and start-ups working on unmanned systems, giving the Army a similar real-world testing ground to assess how these platforms actually perform when altitude, cold and difficult terrain are thrown into the mix.Taken together, these parallel efforts by the Air Force and Army point to a clear, coordinated push across the armed forces toward atmanirbharta in unmanned systems, one that isn’t just about building airframes, but the entire ecosystem around them: propulsion, sensors, payloads, communications, autonomy, electronic warfare, countermeasures and airspace management. With both services now running their own dedicated drone trials, India’s push to build a credible, homegrown unmanned systems industry looks to be gathering real momentum.
