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The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in collaboration with the Drone Federation of India (DFI), has launched the second edition of the National Innovation Challenge for Drone Application and Research (NIDAR 2.0) under the SwaYaan Initiative. The challenge aims to develop indigenous autonomous drone technologies powered by India's own VEGA microprocessor, strengthening the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

About NIDAR 2.0

NIDAR 2.0 (2026–27) is a national-level innovation challenge that encourages engineering students to design, prototype and build next-generation autonomous drones and indigenous drone components. Unlike the previous edition, which focused on drone applications, NIDAR 2.0 shifts emphasis towards autonomous systems, indigenous avionics, flight controllers and onboard intelligence, enabling students to build the "brain" of the drone rather than merely assembling airframes.

The programme functions as the flagship innovation platform under MeitY'sSwaYaan Capacity Building Initiative.

Key Features

The challenge is organised under two innovation tracks.

Track 1: Drone Innovation

Student teams are required to develop autonomous drone solutions for:

• Swarm drones capable of locating disaster survivors and delivering medical supplies without external communication networks.
• GPS-denied drones capable of navigating confined indoor environments for industrial inspection.

Track 2: Component Innovation

• Teams will develop an indigenous flight controller and autopilot system using the VEGA microprocessor and domestic electronic components.
• Following technical evaluation, the top 100 teams will receive two VEGA processor development kits each for testing and integration.
• To promote innovation and entrepreneurship, the challenge offers a prize pool exceeding ?65 lakh, along with startup incubation, cloud computing credits, software support and industry internships.

VEGA Processor

The VEGA processor is a family of indigenously developed microprocessors designed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) under MeitY'sMicroprocessor Development Programme. It is based on the open-standard RISC-V architecture, which aims to reduce India's dependence on proprietary foreign chip designs and licensing costs while strengthening indigenous semiconductor capabilities.

About SwaYaan Initiative

The SwaYaan (Capacity Building for Human Resource Development in Unmanned Aircraft Systems) initiative was approved by MeitY in July 2022 with an outlay of ?89.87 crore for five years.

It seeks to build a skilled workforce for India's drone ecosystem through a Hub-and-Spoke model involving 30 premier institutions, including IISc, IITs, IIITs, NITs, C-DAC and NIELIT.

The programme focuses on five core domains:

• Aeromechanics
• Drone Electronics
• Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) Algorithms & Simulation
• Drone Applications
• Allied Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Technologies

So far, the initiative has trained over 51,000 individuals while supporting specialised academic programmes, online courses, research publications and patents in drone technology.