The First US-Asian demonstration and assessment of MAV and UGV was held in Agra, India during 10^th-15^th March 2008. The event sponsored by US Army, DRDO and CSIR aimed at display of autonomous MAVs and UGVs performing an advanced mission relevant to defence forces. The event also aimed to include providing a forum to identify and technological areas for further development and evolve strategies for counter measures. The motivation for organizing this event in India came from the Indo US workshop on MAV held at NAL in August 2005 in which NDRF actively coordinated and other supporters are Indo US Science and Technological forum and AR&DB. Previous editions of the event were held in Germany in 2003 and 2005. 

The inaugural program on 11^th March 2008 was chaired by Dr.A.R.Upadhya, Director, NAL. The program began with military band in attendance. The first key note address was delivered by Lt.Gen. M.L.Naidu, Indian Army. He brought out the strategic role played by UAVs in the Gulf war. He further mentioned about successful deployment UAVs in Africa in detecting mines in the war prone zones. Lt.Gen. (Dr.) V.J.Sundaram, Advisor, National Design and Research Forum in his invited talk gave an overview of the on going activities related to MAV technology in various institutions in India. He presented the various initiatives for the development of MEMS based sensors for flight control and navigation and also as payloads for various mission. He emphasized the need to develop sensors, sub systems and controls indigenously which are crucial to MAV technology. He touched up on a number of applications that depend on the efficient sensors as pay load for such missions.