🇮🇳  Indigenous · Sovereign · Lethal-grade

India's First Threat-Representative
Low-Speed Aerial Target

"When the threat flies at 150 km/h, your air-defence must train against exactly that."

Operational Reality

The Gap No One Is Filling

0
Indian aerial targets that replicate the low-speed OWA drone threat profile
₹300+ Cr
India's aerial target sub-segment annual spend — unserved
ITAR
+ PIL
Import route closed by ITAR and MoD Positive Indigenisation List

The Threat Has Changed

Operation Sindoor (May 2025), the Russia–Ukraine war, and Iran–Israel drone exchanges confirmed that the low-speed, low-flying one-way attack drone — exemplified by the Shahed-136 — is now the defining threat of modern conflict. These are cheap, piston-engined, and fly at 100–200 km/h.

⚠ Critical Gap

Existing Targets Are Obsolete Against This Threat

Every Indian aerial target system — Abhyas, Lakshya, Banshee — is jet-powered and optimised for high-speed interception training. None can replicate the flight profile, radar cross-section, infrared, or acoustic signature of a piston-engined OWA drone. Air-defence weapons, seekers, and C-UAS systems cannot be validated against the real threat. And now imports are barred.

The Indigenous Solution

KAT-LS 1 Kesari Aerial Target — Low Speed 1
India's First Piston-Engined Aerial Target
⚖️
MTOW
30 kg
💨
Speed Range
100–200 km/h
📡
Range
200 km
Endurance
45–60 min
🏔
Altitude
100–3,000 m
🔁
Swarming
Up to 10 units
Expendable
1E
₹10–12 L / unit
Fly-to-destruction configuration. Full avionics onboard. Designed for live-fire weapon qualification where recovery is not operationally feasible.
Recoverable
1R
10-Sortie Rated Life
Parachute recovery system. Expensive SDR ground-amortised. Lower per-sortie cost for sustained training programmes and sensor qualification campaigns.

Signature & Capability

Engineered to Deceive.
Built to Train.

🎯
Radar Signature
Tunable RCS via Luneburg lens — configurable from ~0.01 m² up to Shahed-class equivalent. Locked leading-edge sweep (53°) for controlled baseline RCS across all qualification sorties.
🔥
Infrared Signature
Piston-engine exhaust provides an authentic IR heat source. Configurable IR augmentation module enables MANPADS and IR-guided seeker qualification against a realistic low-temperature target.
🔊
Acoustic Signature
Gasoline piston engine replicates the exact acoustic profile of piston-engined OWA drones — critical for acoustic detection and cueing systems that cannot train against jet-powered targets.
📡
Command, Control & Navigation
NavIC + GPS sovereign navigation stack. ≥50 km LOS C2 data-link. Zuppa autopilot with BEL/Astra SDR indigenised avionics. Independent FTS on dedicated receiver and battery — electrically isolated from all mission systems.

Market & Opportunity

The Only Credible
Indigenous Answer

Post-Operation Sindoor, the drone threat is no longer theoretical for Indian defence planners. Every air-defence unit, every DRDO seeker lab, every C-UAS developer now requires a realistic low-speed piston-engined target to train against, validate systems on, and qualify weapons for.

The MoD's Positive Indigenisation List has closed the import option definitively. KAS is the only company in India purpose-building this class of aerial target — with the technical depth, certification advisory, and sovereign avionics stack to reach programme-of-record status.

5-Year Serviceable Market
₹20–30+ Cr
KAS Initial Market Objective · India aerial target segment ~₹300 Cr/yr

Target Customers

🛡 Army Air Defence
Indian Navy
✈️ Indian Air Force
🔬 DRDO Labs & PSUs
🎯 Private Sector C-UAS Developers

Leadership & Credibility

The Team Behind KAT-LS 1

Founder · CEO & CTO
Rohit Bisht
M.Tech, BITS Pilani
7+ years in aerospace design, aerodynamics, CFD, FEA, and UAV development. Aerodynamics Lead on a 150 kg anti-radiation decoy drone and a 90 kg target drone programme. Hands-on involvement in early-stage DGAQA certification and airworthiness processes.
Technical Advisor
Shri K.P. Singh
Former Chief Designer, HAL
Four decades of aerospace programme leadership across Tejas, Su-30 MKI, Jaguar, Hawk, HJT-36, and the Lakshya aerial target. Brings full certification depth under CEMILAC, DGAQA, and MIL-STD qualification frameworks — directly applicable to KAS's type certification path.
DIPP259042
CIN: U72100DL2026PTC465349
Delhi-Registered Deep-Tech Defence Startup
Advised · CEMILAC / DGAQA Pathway