Deep Dive Into Drone Warfare

URING Operation Sindoor, we saw videos of swarms of drones.

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Did you know that a Hyderabad-based defence company, Unistring Tech Solutions, manufactured counter-drone systems that rendered many of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used by Pakistan ineffective? TNIE speaks to veteran scientists K Srinivasa Raju and Dr Nagendra Babu Samineni, who were earlier with DRDO and are now the backbone of the company. Excerpts:

We first came across the use of drones in conflicts when Azerbaijan attacked Armenia in 2020. Even then, drone warfare was supposed to be in its nascent stage. Unistring Tech Solutions started much earlier, in 2007. How did you have this idea back then?

The company began in 2007. The first-generation entrepreneurs left in between, in 2014. We had the passion of building a deep-tech defence enterprise since the beginning of our DRDO career in 2003. We made a decision that we would be working for a certain time in DRDO, understand the defence technology requirements, then further take the leap as entrepreneurs and build products that the country needs. Then when we started in 2014, we took over a company that was building a little on technologies and developed it further.

We noticed technology gaps in the defence industry and where we could easily take immediate steps in building products. Our core expertise is electronics. Dr Nagendra's expertise is building electronic systems, my [Raju's] expertise is in building electronic circuits and software algorithms. So we started working on these drones, counter drones—EW or electronic warfare.

EW is a game where you play with electromagnetic signals. For instance, our mobile phones work with electromagnetic signals. And today, without it, the Armed Forces cannot do proper strikes or defence. Electronic warfare is a strategy of taking control of electromagnetic waves.