Taming the Skies: Managing the Unmanned Airspace and Countering Rogue Drones
Document Details
| AUTHOR | Col Vikrant S Shinde |
| DATE | June 10, 2025 |
| DOCUMENT | Takshashila Discussion Document 2025-12. |
| VERSION | Version 1.0, June 2025. |
| CATEGORIES | Defence Tech Public Policy |
Executive Summary
The rapidly evolving Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) or drone ecosystem presents novel opportunities and threats.
Frameworks regulating UAS operations in Very Low-Level (VLL) airspace can be found in the Drone Rules 2021 and the National Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management Policy Framework.
A networked Counter-UAS (C-UAS) grid, concurrent with the Unmanned Traffic Management System (UTMS), is necessary to plug the gaps in the current air defence coverage, which is oriented towards aerial threats in the higher airspace.
The key is to optimise regulatory provisions to distinguish compliant users from non-compliant ones, and then employ the C-UAS grid to neutralise the rogue drone threat.