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DRDO ready with anti-drone system for armed forces, PM Modi to have drone killer as part of his security detail

It is understood that anti-drone systems are now a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s security detail at his residence and portable ones will be part of his car cavalcade.

Updated on: Nov 29, 2020, 17:31:10 IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
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The Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has designated Bharat Electronics as the lead agency for development and production of much needed anti-drone system for the armed forces.

DRDO has been able to successfully develop passive and active anti-drone technology to either disable or shoot down enemy drones. (HT Archive)
DRDO has been able to successfully develop passive and active anti-drone technology to either disable or shoot down enemy drones. (HT Archive)

It is understood that anti-drone systems are now a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s security detail at his residence and portable ones will be part of his car cavalcade. This has been made mandatory as there has been a drone threat since beginning of 2020.

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With Pakistan based terrorists using Chinese made commercial drones to cart weapon payloads and drugs across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir and international border, the DRDO has been able to successfully develop passive and active anti-drone technology to either disable or shoot down enemy drones.

MP-9 sub machine gun recovered by Punjab Police from a drone drop from across the border on August 12, 2019. (Punjab Police)
MP-9 sub machine gun recovered by Punjab Police from a drone drop from across the border on August 12, 2019. (Punjab Police)

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It is understood that DRDO Chief Satheesh Reddy will write to the Indian armed forces soon informing them about the production of indigenous anti-drone system. The anti-drone system, which was deployed during 2020 Republic and Independence Day, has a range of over two to three kilometres with radar capability to pick up the drone and then use frequencies to jam the unmanned aerial vehicle. The other developed option includes spotting the drone through radar and then targeting it by laser beam.

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Since 2019, Pakistan based groups have launched serial drone sorties across the IB in Punjab for delivering weapons and drugs to revive militancy in the border state. The same modus operandi is being used across the IB and LoC in Jammu and Kashmir. Commercially available Chinese drones can carry upto 10 kilograms of weapons and drug payloads.

While the DRDO has developed the system, the Indian private sector along with the security agencies have also been able to concurrently developed anti-drone system. The system has been tested on the LoC and has been able to successfully repel the aerial threat.

  • Shishir Gupta
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Shishir Gupta

    Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More