NIDAR 2.0 (National Innovation Challenge for Drone Application and Research)- (UPSC/RAS) Current Affairs {Science & Technology}

Nodal Authorities: Launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in institutional collaboration with the Drone Federation India (DFI).

NIDAR 2.0 is the second edition of India's premier national hackathon/innovation challenge dedicated to advancing indigenous drone technology, autonomous system avionics, and flight-control intelligence.
Parent Flagship Initiative: Operates under the umbrella of the SwaYaan initiative (Capacity Building for Human Resource Development in Unmanned Aircraft Systems).
Strategic Paradigm Shift: Marks a decisive transition from simply assembling or flying imported drone platforms to developing core computing intelligence domestically colloquially termed as building the "drone's brain".

A key highlight of NIDAR 2.0 is linking the domestic drone ecosystem directly to India's semiconductor mission:

The Processor: Participating teams must design and code drone functionalities using India's indigenous VEGA microprocessors.
Development Authority: The VEGA processor family has been designed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) under MeitY's Microprocessor Development Programme.
Architecture: Built entirely around the open-standard RISC-V architecture.
Policy Convergence: Operates under the Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) programme, which is actively designed to strip away reliance on foreign chip designs and eliminate recurring international licensing costs.

NIDAR 2.0 structures its problem statements into two complementary development streams to foster targeted innovation:

Track 1: Drone Innovation (Autonomous Systems)

RescueSwarm Mission: Fosters the development of cooperative, AI-powered autonomous drone swarms capable of locating survivors and dropping critical medical relief in communication-denied or disaster-hit zones without relying on external cellular or satellite infrastructure.
AirMouse Mission: Focuses on engineering GPS-denied navigation systems capable of autonomously mapping and inspecting indoor industrial facilities or subterranean infrastructures.

Track 2: Component Innovation (Hardware Indigenization)

Flight Controller Units: Restructures local manufacturing by challenging teams to design custom flight controllers and complex autopilot modules using the Aries v3 development board mapped onto the indigenous VEGA chip using local electronic components.

The SwaYaan Framework: SwaYaan is a ₹89.87 crore national capacity-building program working via a Hub-and-Spoke network of 30 premier institutions (including IISc, select IITs, IIITs, NITs, and C-DAC).
Skilling Target Surpassed: Against an initial policy benchmark to train 42,500 professionals, the program has already trained over 51,000 deep-tech professionals across aeromechanics, guidance navigation control (GNC) algorithms, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
Incubation Support: Shortlisted teams receive hardware evaluation tools (VEGA kits), while winning teams are awarded shares of a ₹65+ lakh prize pool, corporate internships, and incubation access to commercialize their prototypes into startups.

Dual-Use Technology Synergy: Drones are a primary dual-use asset. Since civilian and military drones share 60% to 70% of their core internal components (chips, flight software, sensors), innovations emerging from NIDAR 2.0 directly strengthen homeland defense logistics and border security surveillance.
Reducing Import Vulnerabilities: Building the intellectual property (IP) for both the software stack and the underlying silicon architecture protects India from supply chain shocks or software backdoors in critical infrastructure.
Domestic Scheme Interfacing: Deepens the deployment of drone fleets across flagship socio-economic programs, including:
SVAMITVA Scheme: Fostering rural land rights by already mapping over 3.28 lakh villages.
Namo Drone Didi Scheme: Facilitating precision agriculture (fertilizer/pesticide spraying) by putting advanced technology into the hands of women's Self-Help Groups (SHGs).