Runtime

🚨 Ahmedabad-based PierSight (@piersightspace) has successfully integrated and tested the structural qualification model of their first commercial SAR + AIS satellite, Varuna 2.0.

The company’s long-term goal is to build a 32-satellite constellation for persistent maritime surveillance. This is part of PierSight’s main philosophy of building Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems tailored to specific applications across sectors such as maritime, Earth observation, and more.

Use cases of the Varuna constellation include:

- EEZ surveillance
- Maritime insurance
- Illegal fishing monitoring
- Oil spill/dumping detection
- ⁠Identifying ship movements and patterns

Many people mistakenly believe that ideaForge (@ideaforge_tech) began their journey with quadcopter drones.

They didn't.

RuntimeBRT recently took a tour of ideaForge's facilities in Mumbai. During this visit Ankit Mehta revealed that ideaForge's first project was a hovercraft.

In 2004, while studying at the IIT Bombay, Rahul Singh came up with the idea to build a hovercraft to navigate Powai Lake. That ambition is what brought him together with his co-founders, Ankit Mehta and Ashish Bhat, later joined by Vipul Joshi in 2008.

They would eventually pivot toward building the UAVs that the company is known for today. These drones have enabled the company to become India’s largest pure-play UAV manufacturer by market share, with ~50% in the domestic drone segment.

One ideaForge drone takes off every two minutes.

More than two decades after the hovercraft, ideaForge continues their culture of innovation with something new: ZOLT, a multi-role tactical UAV platform designed to operate in contested combat environments. This UAV also introduces a hybrid propulsion system to enable longer-endurance missions, expanding ideaForge’s capabilities alongside its electric UAV portfolio.

In this tour, Ankit Mehta (@ankit_ideaForge) shows us ZOLT, ideaForge's SWITCH UAV manufacturing facility, and everything else the company is working on. Enjoy!

🚨 Pune-based Quintrans (@QHyperloop) has built and tested a scaled prototype of their automated container-handling system for ports.

The linear-motor platform moved a 1-tonne load at 10 km/h on a guided track, as the company works to automate container movement inside ports.

🚨 Hyderabad-based Harvested Robotics (@HarvestedLabs) has developed a 2-axis laser-steering system for Rakshak, their AI-powered laser weeder.

This system aims the laser at weeds identified by Rakshak’s vision software and can detect and burn them in under 0.5 seconds.

This is India's first and only unmanned, AI-piloted fighter jet.

It's called FWD SUPREME and it's being built by Flying Wedge Defence & Aerospace (@Flying_Wedge_).

We visited their Bengaluru factory to understand how they're ushering in a new era of autonomous Indian airpower.