L&T Precision Engineering and Systems has unveiled CHANAKYA, a pioneering decentralised autonomy framework tailored for UAV swarms. This innovative system facilitates advanced capabilities such as flocking, mission-level autonomy, collision avoidance, and coordinated surveillance missions.

Recent social media posts highlight successful demonstrations through synchronised fixed-wing UAV flight trials. Multiple UAVs reportedly took off and synchronised mid-air, operating cohesively as a single entity while navigating waypoints and executing area surveillance.

The framework supports heterogeneous swarms of unmanned systems, enabling collaborative planning, task allocation, execution, and monitoring to fulfil shared objectives. It incorporates features like video analytics to enhance operational efficiency in dynamic environments.

Although no official corporate press release from L&T appears in open sources as yet, a LinkedIn post from LTPES confirms the milestone, describing the trials as a significant step forward. Social platforms including X (formerly Twitter) have amplified the news, with defence enthusiasts sharing details of the seamless flocking and inter-agent collision avoidance.

These developments align with India's Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, bolstering indigenous defence technologies amid growing emphasis on swarm intelligence for military applications. LTPES's prior successes, such as the TEER UAS flight trials for the Indian Air Force, underscore its expertise in unmanned systems.

CHANAKYA's decentralised architecture promises resilience against single-point failures, making it suitable for contested airspace scenarios. Fixed-wing UAVs in the trials demonstrated mid-air synchronisation, a critical enabler for scalable swarm operations in surveillance and reconnaissance roles.

The absence of detailed technical specifications in public domains leaves room for speculation on underlying algorithms, possibly drawing from bio-inspired flocking models like those in nature. Nonetheless, the reported performance indicates maturity in real-world implementation.

As interest surges on platforms like X, with posts garnering thousands of views, anticipation builds for formal announcements or further trials. This positions LTPES as a frontrunner in India's UAV swarm technology landscape.

​IDN (With Agency Inputs)