India is looking to beef up its domestic capabilities by rapidly developing
a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles. The slow development of indigenous UAVs
forced India to drop around $300 million to purchase the Heron and Searcher-II
systems from Israel in 1999, during a tense standoff with Pakistan.
Most recently, the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation announced
it is charging ahead with the development and deployment of the domestically-produced
Nishant and Lakshya drones.
Lakshya is a subsonic reusable target aircraft, powered by a gas turbine. It
already is employed in the Indian Air Force, Army and Navy to train land or
ship-based gun and missile crews in weapons engagement.
With rocket-assisted take-off, Lakshya can reach altitudes of 100 km. It can
be recovered by parachute. It can be reused for 15 missions. A hybrid autopilot
provides pitch, roll and yaw control in flight.
The Lakshya target vehicle will be the basis for the development of a subsonic
cruise missile—one of the futuristic projects planned to start this year.
DRDO is about to deliver the Nishant multi-mission UAV to the services, according
to an official who spoke with National Defense at Asian Aerospace 2004 in Singapore.
Nishant has been developed for battlefield surveillance and reconnaissance,
and has a gimbaled payload assembly with control mechanism in azimuth and elevation.
A pusher propeller driven vehicle, launched from a hydro-pneumatic rail launcher,
the Nishant carries electro-optic payloads of up to 45 kg and can fly just over
four hours.
It has autonomous flight capabilities at longer ranges, as well as jam-resistant
digital command and downlink. The vehicle can be recovered with a combination
of parachute and landing bags. It will be used for day and night reconnaissance,
surveillance, target acquisition and correction of artillery fire. Nishant can
detect human beings out to 2.5 km, trucks at 5 km and buildings at 12 km. It
can fly as fast as 150 km an hour.
The Nishant is connected to a ground control station by a fiber-optic link.
The GCS consists of an electronic map display, mission-planning tools, simulator
for pilot training and remote control of antenna system.
India is expected to soon start the development of a long-endurance UAV, multi-spectral
stealth materials and an autonomous underwater vehicle, according to DRDO.