India’s Swarming Killer Drone Takes Flight: Sheshnaag-150 Unveiled

            image credit : spslandforces

Amid shifting dynamics in Indian defence aviation and ongoing deliberations over acquiring fifth-generation F-35 fighters, India has taken a significant step into the future of unmanned warfare. The Sheshnaag-150, a long-range swarming drone developed by Indian startup Newspace Research Technologies (NRT), has successfully completed its first flight in Karnataka, India’s aeronautical heartland.

While images from the test quietly surfaced during Aero India 2025, a short video confirms what could mark a pivotal shift in India’s approach to deep strike and autonomous airpower.

The Sheshnaag-150 isn’t just another drone—it’s part of a broader family of AI-enabled swarming systems being built by NRT. Designed for collaborative, high-impact missions, the drone is meant to perform precision strikes using distributed autonomy. With a range exceeding 1,000 km and over 5 hours of endurance, it can loiter, track, and engage enemy targets with minimal human input.

The real innovation lies not in the airframe, but in the software — the “mother-code” as NRT calls it — that enables these systems to coordinate, communicate, and make real-time mission decisions autonomously.

Armed with a 25–40 kg warhead payload, the Sheshnaag-150 supports a wide range of operations: precision strike, electronic warfare, surveillance, and ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance). With collaborative autonomy at its core, the system can operate in GNSS-denied environments using visual navigation, a significant leap in reliability and battlefield versatility.

With this platform, the Indian armed forces may soon have the option to deploy swarms for deep strike missions across high-risk areas like the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and Line of Control (LoC). In a real-world scenario, these drones could patrol mountainous terrain, track adversarial troop movements in real time, and even neutralize threats autonomously—minimizing risk to personnel and assets.

These capabilities also extend into counter-terror operations. In remote or hostile regions, swarm drones like the Sheshnaag-150 could carry out coordinated strikes against camps, weapons storage sites, or infiltration points—executing real-time decisions, and overwhelming targets with massed, coordinated firepower.

But building autonomous killer drones is not just about platforms—it’s about the invisible code that drives swarm behavior. NRT’s proprietary command software has already demonstrated the ability to control drones in Ladakh while sitting over 2,500 km away in Bengaluru, using a mix of SATCOM, 4G/5G, and radio networks.

The Sheshnaag-150’s architecture allows modular use across Army, Navy, and Air Force requirements. By focusing on scalable design and flexible payload configurations, the drones are envisioned as cost-effective force multipliers. India’s Air Force, which currently operates non-swarming loitering munitions like the Israeli Harop, will likely benefit from adopting an indigenous system capable of much greater operational depth.

Public comparisons to Iran’s Shahed-136 or Russia’s Geran-2 miss the key differentiator — NRT’s swarm intelligence system, which coordinates unmanned units to behave like a living, learning organism. Decentralized control, rapid adaptability, and kinetic/non-kinetic mission options make the Sheshnaag-150 unique.

The system supports future deployment of multi-domain effects, including jamming enemy communications and disrupting radar networks—critical in hybrid warfare scenarios. Its capability to saturate enemy airspace and act as an attritable weapon makes it well-suited for contested, high-threat environments.

NRT CEO Sameer Joshi summarized the vision:

“Much like the mythological multi-headed serpent, the Sheshnaag family of drones will deliver powerful decentralized swarm strikes across tactical battlefields. Designed for autonomy, these platforms will offer next-gen combat capability to India's forces.”

While the Sheshnaag-150 is still in internal development, NRT is already working with the Indian Army on a previously awarded $15 million contract for swarm drone experimentation. The lessons from that effort are feeding directly into Sheshnaag’s tactical blueprint.

When operationalized, this system will mark a turning point for India’s military doctrine—enabling it to project precision, autonomous force at scale, and reinforce its vision for self-reliant next-gen warfare.

Written by Defence Expert