In a major leap for Indian defence tech, Jayant Khatri and Sourya Choudhury, both 20-year-old students from BITS Pilani Hyderabad, have built cutting-edge drones for the Indian Army. They created these UAVs just two months after launching their startup, Apollyon Dynamics.
One of their standout innovations is a stealth kamikaze drone. It flies at over 300 km/h and can deliver a 1kg payload with high precision. Even more impressive is that they built the drones using off-the-shelf parts.
What sets these drones apart is their undetectability on radar, a game-changing advantage for tactical missions. The pair cold-emailed Army officials on LinkedIn, eventually catching the attention of a colonel who invited them for a live demo in Chandigarh. The Army was impressed. Orders followed.
“We incorporated Apollyon Dynamics in mid-May and immediately began working on our kamikaze drone and long-range surveillance UAVs,” Khatri told Telangana Today. The drones are now slated for deployment in Jammu, Chandimandir, Panagarh, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Beyond kamikaze drones, Apollyon Dynamics has built multi-role aerial vehicles for long-range surveillance, strategic payload delivery, and nighttime operations. According to the founders, these platforms are designed to handle “rugged, high-stakes environments.”
The startup now has a growing team of eight students, and is developing VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) and fixed-wing platforms, keeping their pace aggressive and their focus tight.
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Khatri credits BITS Hyderabad for giving them the ecosystem to “move fast and solve real-world defence challenges.” What began as an ambitious college project has now become one of the most exciting defence tech developments from India’s youth.