Vijayawada, October 3, 2026: Hyderabad-based AKSI Aerospace Group has unveiled Agni Kalash, an indigenous long-range combat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with an operational range of up to 300 km and a top speed of up to 350 kmph, as the company seeks to build domestic capabilities across the critical technology stack that powers unmanned systems.
The combat drone, developed by DronAgni Combat Drones Pvt Ltd, a group company of AKSI Aerospace, was inaugurated by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu at the PanIIT Andhra Pradesh Summit in Vijayawada on Saturday.
Naidu visited the AKSI Aerospace pavilion at the summit and interacted with company officials, including Pankaj Akula, Group MD, AKSI Aerospace Group, who briefed him on the Agni Kalash platform and the group's work in aerospace and unmanned systems.
According to the company, Agni Kalash has been designed for long-range precision-strike missions and incorporates autonomous navigation, modular payload architecture and the capability to operate in GPS/GNSS-denied environments. The platform is also designed for networked and swarm operations.
Key capabilities of Agni Kalash
Operational range of up to 300 km
Top speed of up to 350 kmph
Precision-strike capability
Modular payload architecture
Autonomous navigation
GPS/GNSS-denied operational capability
Networked and swarm-capable architecture
Low-observable design
The company said Agni Kalash incorporates indigenous technologies across several critical systems, including its engine, avionics, battery systems and airframe. Its modular architecture allows the platform to be configured for different missions and payload requirements.
The development comes as the growing use of unmanned systems in surveillance, logistics and combat operations has increased the focus on domestic access to critical drone technologies and resilient supply chains.
For AKSI Aerospace, the focus extends beyond developing complete UAV platforms to building capabilities in the technologies and subsystems that underpin them.
“The next phase of India's drone industry cannot be limited to assembling complete platforms. Strategic capability will increasingly depend on who owns and controls the technologies and components that go into those platforms,” said Pankaj Akula, Group MD and Chief Technologist, AKSI Aerospace Group.
“Our approach is to build these capabilities within India, across propulsion, avionics, batteries, autopilots, motors and composites, and bring them together into complete unmanned systems,” he added.
AKSI Aerospace's nine group companies have specialised focus areas across the unmanned systems value chain. Individual companies within the group are working on areas including propulsion systems, batteries and battery management systems, avionics, autopilots, motors and composite structures, with the aim of developing technologies that can be used across multiple UAV platforms and applications.
The group said this approach is intended to strengthen India's domestic manufacturing base and reduce dependence on imported critical technologies and components for unmanned systems.
AKSI Aerospace is developing UAV platforms and technologies for defence, agriculture, cargo, surveillance and industrial applications.
The Agni Kalash was showcased as part of AKSI Aerospace's participation in the PanIIT Andhra Pradesh Summit 2026 in Vijayawada.
