Tonbo Imaging Wins Indian Navy Contract To Build High-Power Microwave Anti-Drone Weapon

The Bengaluru-based company, which claims to be among a handful of private firms globally with in-house high power microwave technology, will integrate and commission an HPM system for naval platforms.

New Delhi: Bengaluru-based defence technology company Tonbo Imaging has secured a contract from the Indian Navy to develop and deploy a high power microwave (HPM) system under the ADITI 3.0 innovation scheme. The contract is backed by iDEX (innovations for defence excellence) and the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO), both operating under the ministry of defence.

Under the agreement, Tonbo will handle system integration and commissioning, with multiple production units to follow once the system clears development, validation, and acceptance trials.

HPM systems are classified as directed-energy weapons — a category that uses focused electromagnetic energy rather than conventional munitions to disable or degrade targets.

The technology is considered strategically sensitive; only a small number of countries, including the United States, China, Russia, and the United Kingdom, are known to operate advanced HPM systems.

These weapons are capable of frying the electronics of unmanned aerial vehicles, sensors, and communications equipment without causing physical destruction, making them an increasingly studied solution to the tactical problem of drone swarms.

The threat of drone swarms — large numbers of inexpensive, coordinated unmanned systems, has become a pressing concern for navies worldwide, particularly following their battlefield use in Ukraine and in conflicts in the Middle East.

Conventional air defence systems, including missiles and guns, are ill-suited to economically counter such threats at scale.

Directed-energy weapons, including HPM systems and high-energy lasers, offer a low cost-per-shot alternative, though they remain technically demanding to develop.

Vacuum tubes at the core

The managing director and chief executive of Tonbo Imaging India Limited, Arvind Lakshmikumar, said the company had invested over several years in building indigenous HPM technology, including vacuum tube sources — the high-power RF emitters at the heart of HPM weapons.

Lakshmikumar said Tonbo holds core intellectual property in vacuum tube technologies and described this as a decisive factor in winning the contract.

He added that vacuum tube-based sources remain the only practical path for generating the extreme peak power and pulse energy levels required for HPM systems to effectively engage targets, and that solid-state RF alternatives — widely used in radar and communications — cannot currently meet those thresholds within feasible size and weight constraints for field deployment.

India's push for indigenous directed-energy capability

The ADITI framework — Advanced Defence Technology Incubation — is a government initiative designed to bridge the gap between laboratory-stage research and operational induction.

ADITI 3.0 represents the latest iteration, with a focus on pushing private industry deeper into high-end defence technology development.

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has been developing directed-energy weapons independently for years, including laser-based systems for counter-drone applications.

However, the decision to bring in a private company through a structured innovation framework signals a broadening of the approach. It is consistent with the government’s emphasis on private sector participation under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

The company has more recently moved into loitering munitions and counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS), and the navy contract further cements its repositioning as a systems integrator for complex defence platforms.

The Indian navy has been increasing its investments in non-kinetic and electronic warfare capabilities as part of a broader modernization programme.