In the Union Budget of 2022, the Indian Government announced that 68% of its Defence Capital Procurement budget would be reserved for domestic organizations. Within a month of this announcement, ideaForge has received the largest single VTOL Mini UAV defense contract globally.
As a part of this contract, ideaForge shall deliver 200 systems to augment the Indian Army’s Surveillance capabilities.
The traditional understanding was that a Fixed Wing UAV would be the ideal solution for last-mile deployments. On analyzing the actual operational constraints that the Army faced, ideaForge realized that a Hybrid Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) platform which can take off without a runway or by hand launching, would be the ideal solution.
ideaForge won this contract against stiff competition from Israel, Russia, Ukraine, France, India & others. The SWITCH UAV was the only system that emerged successfully from the rigorous testing and field trials that the Indian Army is well known for.
Speaking on the deal, Ankit Mehta, ideaForge Co-Founder, and CEO said, “ideaForge has engineered this product with the unique VTOL approach keeping in mind the terrain challenges in the operational areas of the Indian Army. Our drones are ‘Built like a bird and tested like a tank’, an expression we coined as our systems were undergoing the harshest field trials and lab testing as a part of our journey to bagging this contract. Looking ahead, we want to take this expertise across the world, to everyone in need of protecting their borders or to empower their forces with unprecedented last-mile situational awareness.”
“UAVs are indispensable for ISR. This procurement was a long and intensive procedure to procure the largest number of mini-VTOL UAVs. We are happy to have awarded this contract for ideaForge’s systems, which have proven the test of time, weather, terrain, and performance against other global systems in the last 5 years,” the Official Spokesperson of Indian Defence said.