The biggest global Mini VTOL UAV contract was awarded to ideaForge’s SWITCH UAV by the Indian Army, beating competitors from Russia, Israel, France, Ukraine, and other countries. This marks the third major order for the SWITCH UAV, as there were two previous contracts awarded to SWITCH UAV’s high-altitude variant in 2020 & 2021.
ideaForge designed the SWITCH UAV knowing that its users traditionally don’t have access to clear airspace or a runway at the last mile. ideaForge leveraged India’s diverse geography as its testing ground for 15+ years, to deploy and test in the cold & mountainous Himalayas, the long coastlines, and the hot Thar desert. The SWITCH UAV is a Vertical Take-off & Landing (VTOL) 15 lb platform that can fly for over 2 hours on a single charge. It was rigorously tested and qualified for military deployment while still being half the weight of some of its competitors.
Our drones are ‘Built like a bird and tested like a tank’, an expression we coined as our systems were undergoing harsh field trials and lab testing. Looking ahead, we want to take this expertise to the United States, where similar challenges in terms of last mile deployments and geographical diversity exist. We want to ensure all our users possess unprecedented last mile situational awareness.
Ankit Mehta, ideaForge Co-founder & CEO
We have been very impressed with the technology that we have seen from ideaForge over the recent years. We look forward to testing and evaluating their SWITCH UAV VTOL system for wildfire and disaster response applications, among many others.
JT Von Lunen, President and founder of RMUS, a leading unmanned systems provider in the US and Canada
Source: ideaForge news release
