Inside India’s Drone Revolution: How 26/11 Shaped Ankit Mehta’s Journey From IIT to Battlefield With ideaForge

From student projects to battlefield innovation, Ankit Mehta’s IdeaForge is powering India’s drones for defence and civilian use. With cutting-edge tech built for extreme conditions, the company is turning Atmanirbhar Bharat in defence to reality.

When the Indian Armed Forces launched Operation Sindoor in May this year in response to the horrific Pahalgam terror attack, the world watched closely—not just because of the daring precision strikes, but also because of the technology that powered them. For the first time, the operation put a global spotlight on India’s defence firepower, showcasing how Atmanirbhar Bharat in defence is moving from policy slogan to battlefield reality.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of defence technology, few stories capture the spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat as vividly as that of Ankit Mehta and his company, ideaForge. From a group of IIT-Bombay students tinkering with hobby drones to building one of India’s most trusted unmanned aerial systems (UAS) providers, Mehta’s journey is a testament to persistence, innovation, and the will to transform national security.

In an exclusive chat with Asianet News Digital's Head of Content Adith Charlie on Mic'd Up With India's Defencepreneurs, ideaForge's Co-Founder Ankit Mehta opened up about the company’s journey, the challenges of defence procurement, and the role Indian drones will play in shaping future battlefields.

From Chargers to Quadcopters

The story of IdeaForge didn’t begin with drones. “We actually started off with building hand-cranked chargers for portable electronics, so people could survive off-grid. That was the journey we began with. I had filed a patent on a unique energy device at that time. And that patent we thought would be a good place to start the business with," Mehta recalled.

That early innovation led to the name ideaForge. But tinkering with mobile robotics as students soon nudged the founders into unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In 2004, they built their first quadcopter prototype—years before the technology became mainstream.

“One of the activities I began with, one of my co-founders, Rahul, was he came up to me and he said, I want to make a hovercraft and float it in the lake… And that’s when in 2004, as a student project, we built this quadcopter drone which had four rotors, right, as an innovative helicopter,” he said.

26/11 Mumbai Attacks: The Turning Point

Then came the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, a moment that changed everything. After the terror attacks that shook the world, the team realised drones could be more than experiments.

“When 26/11 happened, you saw that naval helicopters were trying to look into the hotel floors. We were like, maybe drones would have been a better choice if that tech was available. And motivated by that we decided that we will take all of this that we were doing and convert it into a product for our forces,” Mehta revealed.

“That’s when in 2009, we launched our first quadcopter drone. And from 2010 onwards we’ve been serving our forces using this technology,” he added.

Their technology was ahead of its time. “In fact, in 2007, we built the first autopilot… just to sort of juxtapose that with the timeline, in 2009 is when the first open source autopilot came, was announced globally,” Mehta pointed out.

Drones Built for Indian Conditions

Today, ideaForge’s drones dominate the armed forces’ man-portable ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) segment. “Government of India is our biggest customer. Within Government of India, defence is a very big customer for us,” said Mehta.

He explained why their systems stand out globally: “Our technology is designed to be able to operate at down to -30°C, at a takeoff altitude of 5,000 to 6,000m… I had to make sure that we are able to take care of dust and heat [in Rajasthan], rains [in Mumbai], and make sure it can survive in saline conditions of near sea environments.”

The company has also expanded into larger tactical platforms. “We are also building a largish logistic platform that can operate in very high altitudes. And we are designing it to be able to do not just logistics but eventually, medical evacuation type of scenarios in high altitudes,” he revealed.

Societal Impact Beyond Defence

Beyond the battlefield, drones are proving life-saving in unexpected ways. “I always tell our teams that the biggest joy in what we do is when we are able to help save a life or prevent a difficult situation… The joy of that trumps every other news that you can create,” said Mehta.

From preventing human-elephant conflict in jungles to catching hazardous workplace lapses, drones are quietly transforming civilian industries too. “We were deployed in one industry. And the very first flight that we did, we got six people sleeping under a hazardous tank. That… is a very, very tough situation for the owners if any accident happens.”

For Mehta, the future of enterprise security lies in drones: “They are no longer a technology that is extraneous… My sense is that going forward, drones might become as vigourous as CCTV.”

Navigating Defence Procurement

Despite India’s push for Atmanirbhar Bharat, challenges remain in defence procurement. “It does remain the same… the Achilles heel of India moving towards a product nation is perhaps one of the issues that we do not have a method that allows our forces in government to buy innovation,” he admitted.

The problem, he argued, is structural: “By the time something is available to multiple people, it’s already old in terms of technology… As a country, we have to solve for it.”

Looking Ahead

On global expansion, Mehta is pragmatic. “We believe we’ve built a technology stack that’s relevant globally… but even when you land up over there, there is that need for localisation, the need for getting into the context of the user there. And that does take a little bit of iteration adjustment.”

Still, he is confident: “The advantages that you get by building in India can be leveraged globally.”

As the conversation wound down, Mehta also demystified buzzwords reshaping defence warfare — from swarming drones to resilience against jamming. His vision remains clear: Indian drones must not just match global standards but set them.

“Don’t just build what everyone else is building. The only way you build defensibility is by building something that is potentially the world’s first or the world’s best," Mehta declared.

As Operation Sindoor showed, India’s wars of the future will be fought not just with firepower, but with innovation. And in that arena, entrepreneurs like Ankit Mehta and companies like IdeaForge are ensuring that the nation is not just a buyer of technology—but a builder of it.