L&T Showcases Indigenous Drone Breakthroughs at Manthan Demo Day in Bangalore

L&T Innovation Fund, L&T's Group-wide innovation platform, identifies, evaluates and scales emerging technologies that can create business value across the organisation.
- Within this broader innovation agenda, drones have emerged as a strategic focus area, driven by rapid advances in autonomy, artificial intelligence and unmanned systems. - Adoption is growing across defence, infrastructure, construction, logistics and public services.

L&T hosted Manthan - Drone Demo Day in Bangalore, bringing together 21 drone and uncrewed systems startups for live demonstrations. - The event enabled L&T teams to evaluate deployment-ready technologies, identify Proof of Concept opportunities and explore co-development and IP-led partnerships.

Key Highlights:

Unveiling of Vedh Mk1 and Chanakya by L&T Precision Engineering and Systems. - Vedh Mk1: High-altitude, runway-independent RPAS designed for challenging terrain. - Chanakya: Decentralised collaborative mission autonomy framework enabling coordinated operations across multiple unmanned platforms. - Both platforms developed entirely in India, reinforcing L&T’s indigenous defence and unmanned systems capabilities.

Market Context:

India’s UAV ecosystem projected to grow from USD 1.2 billion (2025) to USD 3.2 billion (2030). - Supported by initiatives like **Drone Shakti**, Production Linked Incentive schemes, and defence modernisation. - Opportunities for L&T to engage with startups, evaluate innovative solutions early, and accelerate deployment.

Product Portfolio

Vedh Mk1

High-altitude hybrid VTOL, runway-independent RPAS. - Launch/recovery from confined and unprepared sites including forward areas and high-altitude terrain. - Electro-optical and infrared payload with laser range finder for day/night ISR missions. - Supports artillery observation and fire correction. - Delivered as a complete operational system: air vehicle, containerised ground control station, command/data link, payload control, exploitation systems, ground support equipment, transport modules, and maintenance infrastructure.

Parameter	Vedh Mk1 Capability
Endurance	6 hours or more
Launch altitude	Greater than 4000 m AMSL
Ceiling altitude	Up to 5000 m AMSL

Chanakya

Collaborative Mission Autonomy Framework. - Enables heterogeneous swarms of aerial, ground, surface and underwater platforms to plan, allocate, execute and adapt missions collaboratively. - Features bio-inspired flocking algorithms for formation management and collision avoidance. - Mission autonomy layer dynamically reallocates tasks in real time. - Embedded video analytics unify target detection/tracking from multiple platforms. - Progressed from hardware-in-the-loop simulation to live flight demonstrations with quadcopters and fixed-wing UAVs. - Currently undergoing field validation under complex operational scenarios.