New Delhi, July 13 (ANI): The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in collaboration with the Drone Federation of India (DFI), on Monday launched the second edition of the National Innovation Challenge for Drone Application and Research (NIDAR 2.0), inviting students to develop autonomous drones and indigenous flight controllers powered by India’s homegrown VEGA processor.
According to a MeitY release, NIDAR 2.0 offers a prize pool of more than Rs. 65 lakh, along with startup incubation, cloud computing credits, software support, and corporate internships for participating student teams.
Launching the challenge, 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 was developed under the Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) program, a MeitY initiative aimed at reducing the country’s dependence on foreign chip designs and associated licensing costs.
According to the ministry, this year’s competition shifts the focus from conventional drone platforms to autonomous systems, indigenous avionics, and core drone technologies.
Under the Drone Innovation track, student teams will develop autonomous swarm drones capable of locating survivors and delivering medical supplies in disaster-hit areas without relying on external communication networks. Teams will also design GPS-denied drones for indoor industrial inspections.
The Component Innovation track requires participants to design an indigenous flight controller and autopilot built around the VEGA processor using domestically manufactured electronic components.
MeitY said the top 100 teams selected after the technical evaluation will each receive two VEGA processor development kits for testing, integration, and prototype development.
The ministry said the VEGA processor family was designed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) under MeitY’s Microprocessor Development Programme and is based on the open-standard RISC-V architecture.
According to the release, winning teams will also receive incubation support, corporate internships, and cloud computing credits to help commercialize their innovations.
“Civilian and defence drones share much of the same core technology. The ideas emerging from NIDAR can therefore strengthen both civilian and defence applications, in line with the goals of Atmanirbhar Bharat and Viksit Bharat @2047,” the ministry said.
The inaugural edition of NIDAR, launched in March 2025, attracted 3,448 students from 22 states, four Union Territories, and 109 cities. Of the 93 teams that reached the grand finale, 24 teams won prizes totaling Rs. 40 lakh, according to the MeitY release. (ANI)
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