NewSpace displayed a half-scale model of the Abhimanyu CCA at Aero India 2025. (Janes/Prasobh Narayanan)
NewSpace Research and Technologies (NRT) unveiled a concept model of its collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) – named ‘Abhimanyu' – at Aero India 2025.
An official from NRT told Janes that the CCA – developed under the government's Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) scheme – has been designed for the Indian Navy and it can be latterly adapted for the Indian Air Force. “The first proof of concept is for the navy,” the official said.
The CCA is currently four months into its concept development phase. NRT intends to develop the proof of concept aircraft for the Indian Navy by 2026 and complete platform development in the next three years. “Three years from now we would want it to be fully mission capable including [the] completion of flight tests,” the NRT official said.
Multiple missions
According to NRT, Abhimanyu is an unmanned multirole CCA that will be deployed to support manned fighter aircraft. It will be capable of missions including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), decoy, electronic warfare (EW), and air data relay and will be able to carry warhead.
“This [CCA] specifically comes with many AI/ML [artificial intelligence/machine learning] technologies,” the official said. “For example, you have manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) technologies and with AI/ML you can do automatic target recognition.”
One of the CCA's roles will be to engage with an adversary aircraft without the need for the manned fighter to be within the adversary's detection range. “With an aircraft like Abhimanyu in front of the manned fighter, say 150 km away, the adversary aircraft will detect and engage [with] this first instead of [the] manned fighter,” the official said.
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