Drone Expo Week in Delhi Shows the Gap: The Payload Layer Is Still Being Smuggled In

The development

The eighth edition of Drone Expo was held at Yashobhoomi (India International Convention and Expo Centre), Dwarka, New Delhi, from 28 to 30 September 2026, organised by Services International. Exhibitors spanned drone manufacturers, component and battery suppliers, counter-UAS firms and geospatial and simulation players. No major contracts or orders were reported from the show floor.

In the same week, Delhi Customs announced on 29 September that it had seized 10 drones valued at over Rs 1.03 crore, along with controllers, camera gimbals and accessories, from three Indian passengers who arrived at Terminal 3 on 25 September from Hong Kong via Vietnam. A chartered engineer assessed the drones as professional-grade units with thermal imaging and laser range finders, classed as military- or defence-grade UAVs requiring DGCA registration. The passengers were apprehended under the Customs Act, 1962, and investigation is ongoing.

Why it matters

India restricted the import of foreign drones in 2022 to push domestic manufacturing, and the airframe-and-assembly layer has grown quickly since. But the seized units point at what is still scarce at home: compact thermal cameras, laser range finders and stabilised gimbals - the sensor payload that turns a drone into an ISR or targeting tool. When that capability is being carried in through transit hubs, it shows where domestic supply has not yet caught up with demand.

The dependency and systems frame

Drone sovereignty has several layers: airframe, propulsion, batteries, flight controller and firmware, datalinks, and payloads. Expos showcase the layers India is winning. The payload layer - uncooled thermal detectors, laser rangefinding and precision gimbals - remains thin and import-reliant, and the detector cores inside many domestic payloads are themselves imported. A single seizure is not a trend, and the make of these units was not disclosed; the useful question is whether Indian payload suppliers can meet professional-grade demand at price, or whether grey channels keep filling the gap.

Update: what the expo floor itself showed

Coverage of the expo carried one payload-layer item. Vietnam's Gremsy and its authorised Indian distributor UAVGarage presented Gremsy's VIO payload (4K zoom optics, thermal sensor and a 2,400 m laser rangefinder) and the roughly 200 g LYNX dual-sensor payload. UAVGarage said it would run a domestic logistics network to cut import lead times and give Indian OEMs and operators easier access to imported payloads and gimbals. This is a distributor pitch, not an order, and it does not prove volumes, but it shows the payload layer on the expo floor is being supplied through authorised imports as well as grey ones.

The counter-example is domestic. Reports from April-May 2026 describe EON Space Labs launching Lumira, a germanium-free thermal imaging payload for drones (40x optical zoom, edge-AI detection, MIL-STD-810H), designed around India's dependence on imported germanium. It is a spring launch, not an expo announcement, and customers and volumes were not disclosed, so it marks a direction rather than closed supply.

What to watch

• Findings of the customs investigation, including the drones' make, intended buyers and whether this is part of a wider channel.
• Domestic production of thermal detector cores and laser range finders, not just payload integration.
• Whether drone PLI and procurement rules begin to weight indigenous payload content, not only airframe assembly.
• Enforcement and registration of professional-grade UAVs already inside the country.