Innovation For Defence Excellence (iDEX) has signed its 50th SPRINT contract with Sagar Defence for Autonomous Weaponised Boat Swarms for the Indian Navy. Autonomous Weaponised Boat is one of the technologies introduced out of the 75 challenges by the Indian Navy under the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav in 2022.

Sagar Defence has developed the country’s first Autonomous Weaponised unmanned boat with the capability for swarming. The contract was signed under an Indian Navy project of the Defence India Start-up Challenge (DISC 7) SPRINT initiative.

DRDO has tested 3 remote unmanned weaponized boats in Pune ahead of Defence Expo.
The Autonomous Weaponised Boats were developed in collaboration with Sagar Defence Engineering, a private start-up.
The vessel is capable of relying on the video feed to the ground control station and can be very useful for surveillance and patrolling.
It can be mounted with a machine gun for insurgence operations.
The Autonomous Weaponised Boats have an endurance of about four hours.
Currently, the boat can sail at a maximum speed of 10 nautical miles/hour.
The mission of Sagar Defence is “Boat in a Box” to facilitate easier and safer Unmanned Marine Surface Vehicles (UMSV), vessel command control technology, Navigation instruments, and telemetry systems.