Flying Wedge Successfully Tests India’s First Autonomous Swarm Interceptor, FWD YAMA, for Counter Drone Warfare and SEAD Missions

• Nation’s first autonomous swarm interceptor, FWD YAMA, successfully tested for counter-drone warfare, air defence, and SEAD missions

• Designed to enable precision aerial interception at up to 100× lower cost than conventional missile-based systems, addressing the growing economic challenge of drone threats

• The platform is powered by FWDA proprietary autonomy stack, designed for integration across multiple aerial defence platforms, including unmanned systems and precision-guided munitions

• Fully autonomous, swarm-enabled system capable of detecting, tracking, and engaging aerial threats without human intervention

• FWD YAMA is compatible with Flying Wedge’s Kaala bhairava UAV series, supporting both ground-based and airborne deployment

New Delhi. Marking a significant step towards strengthening India’s modern air defence capabilities, Flying Wedge Defence & Aerospace (FWDA), an Indian AI warfare and defence company, announced on March 5, the successful testing of FWD YAMA, the country’s first autonomous swarm interceptor, designed for counter-UAS, air defence, and Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) missions.

While global militaries rely on costly traditional air defence systems vulnerable to drone saturation, India’s FWD YAMA changes the game. As Iran’s low-cost drones ($20,000 each) overwhelm $4M U.S. Patriot interceptors in the latest conflict, one truth emerges: the next war will be won by superior anti-drone systems. Purposefully built for loitering munitions and drone swarms, YAMA fundamentally alters that equation, enabling autonomous interception at up to 100 times lower cost, with a projected per-unit cost of approximately $10,000.

Developed in response to the rapidly evolving realities of modern warfare, FWD YAMA integrates artificial intelligence, precision-kill capability, swarm coordination, and network-centric integration to counter aerial threats ranging from micro-drones to larger unmanned systems. The platform is powered by Flying Wedge’s proprietary autonomy stack, designed for integration across multiple aerial defence platforms, including unmanned systems and precision-guided munitions, enabling autonomous navigation, targeting, and engagement.

Speaking on the development, Suhas Tejaskanda, Founder and CEO, Flying Wedge Defence & Aerospace, said, “Recent global conflicts have demonstrated how low-cost drones can impose disproportionately high costs on traditional air defence systems. This makes one thing clear that the next war will be won by superior anti-drone systems. Meeting this challenge requires autonomous interception systems that are scalable, economically sustainable, and resilient in contested environments.”

“The Autonomous Swarm Interceptor, FWD YAMA, is engineered to address this gap, enabling precision aerial interception at a projected cost that can be up to 100 times lower than conventional missile-based air defence systems, depending on configuration and mission profile. This enables sustained defence against drone swarm attacks without depleting high-value strategic missile inventories and strengthens India’s sovereign capability to counter evolving aerial threats”, he further added.

FWD YAMA is designed to provide India with a sovereign capability to counter evolving aerial threats while significantly reducing the cost of defence. Operating on a fully autonomous engagement architecture, once cued by radar or surveillance systems, it can independently detect, classify, prioritise, track, and engage aerial threats without human intervention. The system integrates radar-based cueing, multi-sensor data fusion, electro-optical and vision-based terminal tracking, and autonomous engagement logic to enable precision interception.

Engineered to operate in GPS-denied and communication-contested environments, including under electronic warfare and jamming conditions, the platform supports coordinated swarm deployment, enabling multiple interceptors to autonomously distribute targets and execute cooperative engagements. The system is capable of neutralising threats as small as micro-drones, including DJI Mini-class platforms, while retaining scalability against larger unmanned aerial systems.

Beyond ground-based deployment, FWD YAMA has been designed for airborne integration. The company confirmed compatibility pathways with its Kaalabhairav UAV series, enabling air-to-air defensive operations and extended engagement envelopes. The platform architecture also supports Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) roles, enabling autonomous detection and precision neutralisation of hostile air defence nodes in contested environments.

The Autonomous Swarm Interceptor forms part of Flying Wedge’s broader initiative to develop a sovereign ecosystem of AI-driven combat platforms, including unmanned combat aircraft, network-centric defence systems, and autonomous air combat technologies engineered and manufactured in India.