India, Aug. 9 -- The most important technology story at L&T Manthan - Drone Demo Day was not a single drone. It was the changing architecture of unmanned systems themselves.

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) used the Bengaluru event on August 7, 2026, to unveil Vedh Mk1, a high-altitude, runway-independent remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS), and Chanakya, a collaborative mission autonomy framework designed to enable different classes of uncrewed systems to work together.

The two technologies address very different problems, but together they point towards a larger shift. Drones are evolving from remotely controlled aircraft into increasingly autonomous systems that must sense their surroundings, make decisions closer to the edge, function in d...