Phoenixcore Systems

Category: DefenceTech | Autonomous Systems | Edge AI | Drone Technology 

Startup Summary 

Edge is building mission-first autonomous aerial systems for defence and critical operations. Its edge-autonomy software stack enables drones to operate reliably in degraded, contested, and communication-denied environments using sensor-agnostic intelligence and advanced sensor fusion.

First Byline: Mission-first autonomy for drones operating where conventional systems fail.

Second Byline: Building edge-resident autonomous aerial systems for defence and high-risk missions.

Highlights 

• Building a sensor-agnostic edge-autonomy software stack for defence drones.

• Founder brings 5+ years of production autonomy experience from the US deep-tech ecosystem.

• In-house expertise across PX4, ROS2, perception, multi-agent coordination, and sensor fusion.

• Successfully demonstrated a dual-drone autonomous radiation survey with live georeferenced heatmap generation.

• TRL 4+, contracted customer for radiation reconnaissance, incubated at RIIDL, and bootstrapped by the founders.

• Positioned to benefit from India's rapidly expanding defence drone procurement and autonomy market.

Team 

• Niket Shah : Founder

What They Do 

Develops edge-autonomy software and sensor-fusion payloads that enable autonomous drones to execute complex defence and industrial missions in GPS-denied, communication-limited, and contested environments. The autonomy software is the core product, while the hardware remains deployment-agnostic.

Pain Points

• Conventional drone platforms rely heavily on communication links, GPS, and off-the-shelf autonomy, making them unreliable in contested or degraded environments. 

• Defence and critical infrastructure operators require mission-ready autonomous systems capable of making intelligent decisions at the edge.

Solution 

Edge delivers a mission-centric edge-autonomy platform that combines onboard AI, sensor fusion, and autonomous decision-making to enable drones to complete critical missions independently in environments where traditional drone systems fail.