India Selects U.S. V-BAT VTOL Drone With Combat-Proven Hivemind Autonomy for ISR Missions.

The Indian Army has selected Shield AI’s V-BAT unmanned aircraft system along with licenses for its Hivemind autonomy software, according to a January 28, 2026 company release. The move matters because it pairs a U.S.-built VTOL ISR platform with software that allows India to develop mission-specific autonomy at home, reducing reliance on closed foreign code in high-risk environments.

Shield AI’s January 28, 2026 press release confirms that the Indian Army has selected the V-BAT unmanned aircraft system alongside licenses for the company’s Hivemind autonomy software, with the integration designed to push reliable ISR deeper into contested environments. The deal also includes access to the Hivemind software development kit, a practical lever for India because it opens a pathway to develop and validate mission-specific autonomy applications domestically rather than relying on closed, foreign-coded behaviors. Framed by Shield AI as a requirement spanning the Himalayas to India’s oceanic borders, the purchase signals a deliberate move toward a single expeditionary UAS baseline that can support mountain warfare, dispersed border formations, and maritime security tasks with the same core air vehicle and autonomy stack.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link

V-BAT is an ISR drone, but with EO/IR, optional SAR, and a laser designator, it can find, track, and mark targets for artillery or precision fires, using Hivemind autonomy to keep operating under jamming and degraded GPS (Picture source: Army Recognition Edit).

V-BAT sits in a spot between man-portable quadcopters and runway-dependent tactical UAVs. The aircraft is a Group 3 VTOL design built around a ducted-fan configuration that allows vertical launch and recovery from a 4.6 m by 4.6 m landing zone, including confined sites such as rooftops and small ship decks. Shield AI lists a 3.8 m wingspan, 73 kg maximum gross takeoff weight, and a heavy-fuel engine compatible with JP-5, a practical advantage for forward units already managing common NATO-standard fuels. With an EO/IR payload, the company advertises more than 12 hours of endurance, which changes how often an Army commander can refresh a target track in complex terrain.

Payload and network options are where V-BAT becomes more than just another ISR drone. Shield AI advertises up to 18.1 kg payload capacity and 600 W available for payload integration, alongside an open architecture approach aimed at integrating different radios and sensors while maintaining STANAG compliance. Beyond classic stabilized EO/IR turrets, the published options include synthetic aperture radar and laser rangefinder and designator fits, meaning the system can progress from surveillance to precise targeting support for tube artillery, rockets, and precision loitering munitions. Communications ranges are listed at 130 km with an MPU5 link and 180 km using a C-band radio, with an SATCOM option extending operations beyond line of sight when tactically required.

The differentiator, however, is software. Hivemind is being delivered not only as an onboard autonomous pilot but also as a development environment. Shield AI states the SDK enables sovereign development, deployment, and evaluation of mission autonomy, a formulation that aligns with India’s long-standing demand to avoid black-box dependence in critical combat systems. Under the hood, Shield AI’s EdgeOS middleware emphasizes deterministic, low-latency behavior through static configuration and localized computation, while also supporting multi-agent synchronization and network-aware coordination, the foundations needed for autonomous teaming under electronic attack. In earlier public descriptions, Shield AI’s V-BAT teaming concept relied on modular GPU-based compute integrated into the payload bay, illustrating how autonomy can be scaled without redesigning the airframe.

For the Indian Army, the operational logic is that the country’s most demanding contingencies are defined by distance, terrain, and spectrum contestation. Along the Line of Actual Control and the Line of Control, line-of-sight is routinely broken by ridgelines, valleys, and weather, while both China and Pakistan have invested heavily in electronic warfare and air defense capabilities that punish predictable flight profiles and centralized control links. A VTOL platform that can be launched from small forward bases and still provide day-long persistence gives brigade and division commanders an organic stare capability that does not depend on a runway, a large ground footprint, or perfect GNSS reception. Indian reporting has also framed the acquisition under an emergency procurement route, emphasizing the importance of rapid fielding and localized autonomy development.

V-BAT is expected to be used for persistent border surveillance, route reconnaissance, artillery adjustment, and battle damage assessment, with special forces and high-mobility formations benefiting most from runway independence. In mountain sectors, a single aircraft orbiting for 12 hours can maintain continuity on infiltration routes and logistics tracks, while laser designation and precise coordinate generation compress the sensor-to-shooter timeline for long-range fires. On the maritime side, V-BAT’s ability to recover onto small decks and its wide-area optical sensing concepts point to coastal security missions such as identifying small craft, cueing patrol assets, and monitoring choke points without tying up larger strategic UAV fleets.

Compared with what India already fields, V-BAT fills a conspicuous gap. The Army has long relied on systems such as the Searcher Mk II for tactical ISR, a capable platform but one that is fundamentally runway and infrastructure-dependent, while larger Heron-family UAVs provide wide-area surveillance at higher echelons. At the other end of the spectrum, Indian industry has delivered small VTOL hybrids designed for high-altitude use with a man-portable footprint, but with endurance and range optimized for short tactical tasks rather than deep, persistent coverage. V-BAT effectively bridges these layers, offering more deployability than runway-based tactical drones, far greater persistence than man-portable VTOLs, and lower logistical burden than strategic HALE systems procured primarily for maritime surveillance.

Industrial follow-through will be closely watched. JSW Defence has already begun construction of a Hyderabad-area facility tied to a long-term licensing and transfer-of-technology arrangement to manufacture V-BAT domestically, with production expected to begin by the last quarter of 2026. If that schedule holds, India will gain not only a new tactical capability but also a scalable sustainment and production base, a factor increasingly central to operational resilience in drone-intensive conflicts.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.