300kmph, radar-proof: Army buys BITS-Hyd students' hostel-built drones
Two 20-year-old engineering students of the institute have stunned India's defence circles by building and selling cutting-edge UAVs to Army units across Jammu, Haryana's Chandimandir, Bengal's Panagarh, and Arunachal Pradesh — all within two months of launching their start-up Apollyon Dynamics.
Their mission: reduce India's dependency on imported drones.
Jayant Khatri, a mechanical engineering student from Rajasthan's Ajmer, and electrical engineering student Sourya Choudhury from Kolkata built their drones with off-the-shelf parts, customised the systems for Indian terrain, and pitched them to Army officers via cold messages on LinkedIn.
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"I just started shooting cold emails to whoever I could find… Luckily, a colonel responded and called us to Chandigarh for a demo," Khatri said, speaking to TOI on Monday.
What followed was a whirlwind — a live demo of bomb-dropping and racing drones, followed by more demonstrations to military regiments. Orders began flowing in. The company was born.
Their standout product: a Kamikaze drone that hits speeds over 300kmph, five times faster than standard commercial UAVs, and delivers 1kg payloads with pinpoint accuracy. "Our drones are not just fast — they can't be detected on radar," said Choudhury.
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The duo insists every UAV is built in-house with a focus on "ruggedness, reliability and adaptability". "Our shared love of robotics brought us together. We started with a defence-tech club on campus. Then came the orders — that's when we knew we had to go big," Choudhury said.
The team now includes six second-year students and is working on next-generation VTOL (Vertical Take-off and Landing)) and fixed-wing platforms to boost mission flexibility.
They also offer hands-on training to military personnel — even those with no prior flight experience.
"It's heartening to see what they've achieved," said professor Sanket Goel of BITS Pilani. "Their start-up has already secured multiple orders from the armed forces."
In "3 Idiots", Joy Lobo's passion for machines died in silence — no support, no takers. In real life, two students built war-ready drones in a hostel room. The Army called back.
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