In a mechanised battle, the hardest question a tank crew faces is not how to hit a target — it is whether the target is a friend. In the dust, the smoke and the speed of armoured warfare, friendly fire has always been one of the cruellest risks of the battlefield. Navyug Infosolutions, a Noida technology company founded by a retired Army colonel, has built the answer: an indigenous Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system that lets Indian Army tank crews know, in an instant, whether the vehicle in their sights is one of their own.
The system grew out of the Indian Army’s own requirement, set under the Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC 3) run through the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) programme. Navyug won the challenge, built the technology with support from the iDEX and Defence Innovation Organisation ecosystem and IIT Delhi’s Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT), and has now reached the stage every defence innovator dreams of: the Indian Army has placed procurement orders for it, and the system appears on iDEX’s official list of successful products with a procurement order placed.
A second of certainty before the shot
The IFF system works on a secure interrogation-and-response principle. When a tank crew picks up a target, the system sends a coded challenge; a friendly vehicle answers it automatically, and the crew sees instantly that the target is one of theirs. It slots into the equipment the crew already uses — the vehicle’s Laser Range Finder (LRF) and targeting systems — so the extra layer of safety fits inside the same engagement cycle, without asking the crew to learn a new way of fighting.
Alongside target verification, the system gives commanders a clearer picture of the battlefield, with situational awareness built in so that friendly positions are understood, not guessed at. That is the heart of what the system does: it turns a moment of doubt into a moment of certainty, and in armoured warfare, that certainty is what keeps India’s own soldiers safe.
From a Noida software house to the Army’s armour
Navyug Infosolutions was founded in 2010 by Colonel Sunil Prem (retd) and Sanjeev Kumar. Col Prem served 24 years in the Army’s Corps of Engineers, commanded an Engineer Regiment and taught at the National Defence Academy, and he built Navyug with the soldier’s eye for what actually works in the field. The company began in web, mobile, IoT and AI software, and its defence work grew out of the same engineering bench — clients on its roster include the Indian Army, Larsen & Toubro and Wipro.
The IFF system is not the company’s first defence product. Navyug has built remotely operated vehicles for the Indian Army’s Military Engineer Group in Bengaluru, a Tactical Engagement Trainer and software-controlled counter-IED training ranges, and at the Dubai Airshow 2025 it showcased its IFF systems alongside drones and simulation solutions. The common thread is practical technology for people who operate where mistakes are expensive.
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On the Army’s procurement list
The journey from challenge winner to supplier is the part that sets this story apart. The iDEX programme’s official procurement list, current to 30 June 2026, records the Friend or Foe Identification System as a successful iDEX product with a procurement order placed by the Indian Army, and FITT at IIT Delhi has confirmed both the development and the substantial orders that followed. For a technology built to prevent the worst outcome on a battlefield, that is the strongest possible endorsement: the Army is not just trialling it, it is buying it.
From a Noida office to the turrets of India’s main battle tanks, Navyug’s IFF system is a quiet piece of engineering with a profound job — making sure that when an Indian tank crew looks down its sights, the first thing it knows is that the vehicle ahead is a friend. In a force that is steadily replacing imports with home-grown systems, that is exactly the kind of Indian innovation worth celebrating.
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