A fifth-semester computer engineering student from Himachal Pradesh has secured Rs 3.5 crore from the Union Ministry of Defence to develop a drone for surveillance in high-altitude border areas.
The project focuses on surveillance in mountainous areas, where difficult terrain and high altitude can make monitoring challenging. Sharma’s work on the project followed his participation in the Open Cardboard Drone Competition, organised by IIT Jodhpur and the Konark Corps. Sarvesh Sharma, a student at Government Polytechnic, Hamirpur (Baru), is developing the Rudra Edge T-1 (Spectra) under the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO) and Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) initiative. About 50 teams from educational institutions across India participated in the competition. Sharma’s team finished fourth and received Rs 10 lakh in prize money. “I spent Rs 87,000 and prepared a startup proposal and submitted it to the defence ministry under its individual innovation framework.
Luckily, it was approved,” Sharma said.
The competition also encouraged Sharma to work on a drone that could address surveillance challenges in high-altitude border regions. He later developed the idea further and spent Rs 87,000 on the initial project and proposal before submitting it to the Defence Ministry under its individual innovation framework.
With the approval of the grant, the project has now moved beyond its initial prototype stage. Sharma’s project has been linked with an incubation centre at IIT Roorkee, where he will get access to laboratory facilities and technical mentorship. Sharma’s team is working on a drone that could be less detectable by radar and more resistant to electronic jamming. However, these capabilities are still part of the development process and will need to be established through testing. Sharma is from Bahanvi village in Hamirpur district. The project will now enter a longer development and testing phase with support from IIT Roorkee and the Defence Ministry.
His father works as a daily-wage labourer and his mother is a homemaker, according to The Tribune.
