Interview
Director: Yes, India has been slow though we were amongst the first to start development of UAVs. For instance, 90 minutes endurance sparrow UAV was successfully fielded in army exercise brass tacks in mid-1980s. The Nishant took almost 12 years to develop but the Rustom-1 which uses all the Nishant technologies took only 5 years and so will Rustom-2. We would like to add that we are slow in absorbing the developed UAVs. SP’s: India has ambitious plans for using UAVs and UCAVs in the near future, all the requirements of the three military services are likely to be met by imports. What does this mean to ADE? Director: No comments on UCAVs. In respect of UAVs Nishant, Rustom-1 and Rustom-2 (after its development) and MAVs meet the specification of all the contemporary UAVs of the world. Together with the manufacturing partners we must meet the user’s ambitions of quality and quantity to curtail and stop the imports. SP’s: Though the Indian Army has received four Nishant UAVs its induction has been delayed. Are technical glitches the reason, if so, what measures are being taken to set them right? Director: There was a procedural delay in its acquisition and this delay is not due to technical glitches. Indian army placed the order, after they were satisfied with performance of the UAV. SP’s: Could you indicate the developments of UAV for antiterrorist and counter-insurgency operations? Director: ADE together with NAL and private industry has developed a number of micro aerial vehicles for the above purposes and are being evaluated by a number of paramilitary agencies.
SP’s: What is the status of Rustom-2 and has the vendor being shortlisted? Director: Rustom-2 is one of the prestigious projects launched by DRDO and ADE is the nodal agency for its design and development. Within a short span of one year, we are able to complete the design of all the systems and are in the process of procurement of these systems from various industries for starting integration from end 2013 by which time we will also have our integration partner from the industry. SP’s: Could you please tell us the status of AURA. Is it going to be completely indigenous development or will there be overseas inputs? Director: ADE is not the agency handling AURA and hence we can’t comment about the same. SP’s: There is talk about ADE developing a solar-powered UAV and that it is scouting for a foreign partner. Could you throw some light on this? Director: As a part of long endurance UAV programme, ADE is in the process of taking up development of solar-powered UAV. We are in the look out for foreign partners. SP’s: In the next 10 years what do you foresee would be the developments in unmanned vehicles and where would India figure in this development cycle? Director: ADE’s strategic analysis group has predicted that unmanned aerial vehicles’ growth will be exponential in the next decade and there will be huge demand for fully autonomous unmanned systems. ADE’s future programmes will be towards increase of levels of autonomy of these systems. n
Lakshya: Remotely piloted high speed target drone system developed by ADE
SP’s to ICAUV ’12
9