By Tunir Biswas

Copyright yourstory

After 28 years at DRDO and 1.5 years at TATA Advanced Systems, Neeta Trivedi decided to chart her own course in the aerospace industry. Trivedi had decades of experience in the sector; her achievements included developing the end-to-end cockpit display system of the multirole light fighter aircraft HAL Tejas. However, she noticed crucial gaps in the sector.

“Many people are making drones right now, and that sector is saturating. But the next step would be to see how intelligently those machines carry out their mission. Not many people are into it right now, as such work has a long gestation period and is very probabilistic in nature,” Trivedi tells YourStory.

To close that gap, Trivedi joined hands with N Krishnamurthy in 2022 and founded Inferigence Quotient, a deeptech startup developing intelligent solutions for Unnamed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Inferigence, a portmanteau of inference and intelligence, is incubated under multiple incubators such as Forge, NASSCOM, CIIC Chennai and GUSEC Gandhinagar.

With a focus on intelligent surveillance and automation, the 20-member startup—comprised entirely of engineers—is based in Bengaluru, where it has a facility to assemble imported products. Most of the manufacturing is done in India.
Developing deeptech solutions to make intelligent UAVs
One of the major innovations the startup is trying to build is intelligent autonomy for UAVs. Presently working in the aerial space, Trivedi says Inferigence plans to take that eventually to surface and underwater levels as well.

“The ideal scenario for intelligent autonomy would be when I would be able to instruct a drone about a mission in English and the drone would understand the command, scan through the map to figure out the best path, evade obstacles, and carry out the mission,” CEO Trivedi says.

To eventually realise that scenario, the startup is currently building solutions for terrain collision avoidance and vision-based landing on runways for aircraft. Trivedi says India’s vision for drones is to be able to go to the remotest parts of the country, transporting goods like medicines and crops.

“Once crops are cultivated, it helps everybody if farmers are able to quickly transport them via drones to the market. But you would need support infrastructure such as landing mechanisms and ground infrastructure. Autonomous landing would solve half of these issues.”
The deeptech startup’s flagship product is Chetas, an intelligence surveillance and collision avoidance system built for Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). Inferigence retains the IP, and the B2B/ B2G startup will be able to sell to other clients once HAL starts using it in its aircraft for an undisclosed amount.

“Chetas does three things: static collision avoidance (evading a tree or a mountain peak), dynamic collision avoidance (evading birds or other aircraft), and aerial surveillance,” she explains.

Chetas has evolved into iPARAS, which fuses a ground proximity warning system and dynamic collision avoidance. “Let’s say your aircraft is heading towards a terrain, so you give it a command to go up to avoid it. But right above it is another aircraft. Here, your aircraft would need to pull off a complicated manoeuvre, which is what iPARAS would help achieve,” she says.

Apart from intelligent autonomy, another crucial vertical is intelligent surveillance, which Inferigence calls Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (iSTAR). Its moonshot product in that avenue is 7Sense, a platform for ‘intelligence exploitation’.

India has multiple UAVs, and these are deployed across all geographical sectors. The UAVs are equipped with various sensors like cameras, radar and communication sensors, all of which keep recording data.

“When you analyse the data over a period of time, chances are you will notice a pattern. For instance, when something happens in the Northern sector, a ripple effect will be detected in the Northeastern sector. 7Sense is an AI platform that keeps looking for such patterns and alerts the military when something is spotted,” Trivedi says.

The deeptech startup is also building iTAPS, a navigation software developed for the Indian Navy to manoeuvre in underwater terrains where the GPS signal is lost. iPARAS, 7Sense and iTAPS are currently being tested through simulations, and the CEO says all three will be launched by the end of FY26.
The business of intelligent machines
The B2G and B2B deeptech startup has seven clients as of now, including DRDO and the Indian Army. Due to the versatility of its AI-led technology, Inferigence has also worked with two commercial companies in Australia and the US in non-deeptech projects like document summarisation.

Trivedi, however, emphasises that the startup’s primary focus will be deeptech. “We can create spin-off products from the technology we have developed. But we want to focus all our energies on deeptech projects only.”

While the assembling of the hardware for said deeptech projects is done at the startup’s campus in Bengaluru, manufacturing is outsourced to other Indian companies. However, Inferigence builds smaller UAVs—like a quadcopter—in-house.

Trivedi believes the deeptech sector in India is poised for significant growth despite reservations from investors. “They are not able to see market projections very clearly right now. Unless a startup is already tied up with some defence company, they display a bit of hesitation. I’m sure they will change their minds when they see the developed products and the military adopting them,” she says.
Trivedi predicts a market valuation of Rs 100 crore for Inferigence Quotient by 2027 once its “major products go live”. Currently, the deeptech startup has accumulated over Rs 6.17 crore across multiple grants like IDEX, Gok Elevate and Meity TIDE. But the CEO is looking to raise conventional funding rounds for further growth.

“External funding rounds won’t work because there already exists some hesitation from investors. I am more interested in a strategic partnership or even a good acquisition where my team retains a considerable level of autonomy,” she says.

Competing with Charlotte-based companies like Honeywell and Collins Aerospace, Trivedi believes that Inferigence maintains an edge over the Indian market due to its Make in India production and its novel technology.