India’s Defence Acquisition Council has sanctioned the Indian Air Force’s Collaborative Long Range Target Saturation/Destruction System (CLRTS/D)—a cutting-edge autonomous swarm drone programme designed for deep-strike and base-disruption missions. The decision marks a major advancement in India’s autonomous warfare capability under indigenous defence modernisation.

The CLRTS/D system will field fully autonomous swarm drones capable of operating seamlessly even in dense electronic warfare (EW) environments. The platform is engineered for over 1,100 kilometres of operational range, enabling precision strikes deep into adversary territory while maintaining coordinated autonomy without external control dependency.

In terms of payload configuration, 80% of the swarm units will carry specialised warheads optimised for high-speed top-attack, spiral-loiter, shelter penetration, and electrical grid disruption. The remaining 20% of the swarm will be dedicated to distributed intelligence, equipped with DSMAC (Digital Scene Matching Area Correlation) sensors, secure data-links, and onboard AI for shared decision-making and target selection.

The CLRTS/D formation will exhibit long-range regrouping ability, allowing self-coordinated mission continuity and adaptive re-engagement against mobile or concealed targets. Its unified intelligence-sharing architecture will enable target prioritisation, dynamic swarm formation, and complete post-strike situational awareness across the operational theatre.

Engineered for strategic saturation strikes, the system’s primary role is to neutralise enemy airbases, radar networks, power infrastructure, and hardened shelters, effectively paralysing aerial operations. Once deployed, CLRTS/D is projected to redefine India’s precision deep-strike doctrine by blending autonomy, distributed AI, and long-endurance unmanned capability into a single integrated system.

Technical Architecture of CLRTS/D Swarm Drone System

The Collaborative Long Range Target Saturation/Destruction System (CLRTS/D) architecture is based on a distributed, decentralised AI ecosystem that enables dynamic decision-making without reliance on a central controller. Each drone functions as both an autonomous operative and a networked node, ensuring system resilience even under jamming or attrition.

The drones are expected to use indigenous propulsion units, possibly derived from miniaturised turbojet or electric hybrid engines, providing both endurance and agility across operational altitudes. The onboard avionics suite integrates an AI-enabled fly-by-wire system, INS/GPS/IRNSS navigation, and encrypted line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) communication links. The DSMAC module onboard provides precision scene-matching navigation and real-time battle assessment, even in GPS-denied zones.

Mission planning will be managed through a collaborative command and control (C2) system, hosted on a mobile or airborne station. Before launch, deep-learning algorithms will pre-map potential target zones and path vectors, which the swarm can later modify autonomously based on battlefield dynamics. Each drone will continuously share telemetry and target classification data, allowing adaptive regrouping and collective decision-making in hostile territories.

Industrial And Development Partners

The CLRTS/D initiative will likely be spearheaded by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) under DRDO, in close partnership with HAL’s Tactical UAV Division and BEL’s electronic warfare directorate for the secure datalink ecosystem.

Private-sector firms such as TASL, Paras Defence, NewSpace Research & Technologies, and Adani Defence Systems are expected to contribute AI cores, propulsion units, and composite aero-structures.

Advanced testing and validation are expected to be conducted at Chitradurga’s Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), with potential flight demonstrations under varying EW conditions. The manufacturing phase will emphasise indigenous subsystem sourcing, rapid assembly-lines under the Make in India initiative, and modular upgrade provisions to adapt future swarms with hypersonic or loitering variants.

IDN (With Agency Inputs)