The second edition of the drone innovation challenge will encourage students to create autonomous drones and indigenous flight controllers using India’s homegrown VEGA processor.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in collaboration with the Drone Federation India (DFI), has launched the second edition of the National Innovation Challenge for Drone Application and Research (NIDAR 2.0) to increase the development of autonomous drones and indigenous flight controllers powered by India’s VEGA processor.
According to The Economic Times, the programme offers a prize pool of over ₹6.5 million (about $76,000), along with startup incubation, cloud computing credits, software support and corporate internships for participating student teams.
Launching the initiative, MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan said, “NIDAR 2.0 takes our students from just flying drones to building the drone’s brain. When the drone’s brain runs on India’s own VEGA processor, we are not just training engineers. We are laying the foundation of a self-reliant drone industry.” He added that the VEGA processor has been developed under the Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) programme to reduce India’s dependence on foreign chip designs.
The challenge includes two tracks. The Drone Innovation track focuses on autonomous swarm drones capable of locating survivors, delivering medical supplies in disaster-hit areas and operating in GPS-denied environments. The Component Innovation track will require teams to build indigenous flight controllers and autopilot systems around the VEGA processor.
The top 100 shortlisted teams will receive VEGA processor kits for development and testing, while winning teams will also receive incubation support to help commercialise their innovations. MeitY said the programme supports the goals of Atmanirbhar Bharat and Viksit Bharat @2047. The first edition of NIDAR, launched in 2025, attracted 3448 students from 22 states, four Union Territories and 109 cities, with 24 teams winning prizes worth ₹4 million (about $47,000).
