Air Force orders 50 laser-guided bombs from ADE

Armand2REP

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Actually i am talking of a DRDO lab which was not supposed to make LGB kits of any kind in first place, it was even laugh at. But what we see today is other story......like i said, just wait and watch. And BTW DRDO won't bother wasting their resources for developing something for MRE menu which we Yuk at....
Who else would make LGB kits? IRDE is already making the seekers. DIHAR can make the high altitude snails, they should try LGBs next! :pound:
 

Rahul Singh

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Who else would make LGB kits? IRDE is already making the seekers. DIHAR can make the high altitude snails, they should try LGBs next! :pound:
Who else ? Why someone else when ADE can? Oh yes AASM an equipment sure they can......And no they can't make high altitude snails because they can't stand its yuk.
 

Twinblade

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Possible follow on version of Sudarshan precision guidance kit with GPS aided navigation. This variant looks significantly different from the current design and features mid course guidance. It carries laser gimbal in the nose and GPS and INS guidance unit in tail.

PG Kit for HSLD Bomb

The aim of PG kit is to convert dumb bomb in to a precision strike weapon which increases range of weapon manifold by aerodynamics manoeuvering. The kit is in the form of tail cone and nose cone and can be fitted easily around the bomb body. The tail cone houses mainly electromechanical fin actuation system, INS-GPS module, and a guidance on-board computer. The nose cone comprises of laser seeker module along with electronics.

Flight Control and Interface Electronics Unit

The purpose of flight control and interface electronics unit (FCIEU) is to implement guidance, navigation and control algorithms, interface with aircraft and GPS/INS unit, and issue control surface deflection commands to ACEU. It is required for real-time computing and sufficient I/O capabilities. FCIEU integrates with navigation sensors and implements three-loop autopilots and the trajectory control guidance algorithm. It implements the algorithms, which are computationally intensive and will have constraints of three-loop response time of few millisecond. Unit is also responsible for communicating with all sub-systems with pre-defined protocols on different serial interfaces. It has power source and regulation unit which generates different voltages required by different components on FCIEU and GPS/INS integrated module.

Salient Features
-Interfaces with USB memory for reading mission data
-Interfaces with aircraft over data bus for mission data reading and INS initialisation/ alignment
-Senses the release of the bomb from the aircraft and after pre-defined delay initiates the thermal battery
-Sends control signal to RF switch for correct GPS antenna selection
-Interface with GPS/INS unit for control and navigation Implements guidance and control laws (roll and lateral autopilots)
-Interfaces with ACEU for tail fin control
-Transfers laser code to homing head
-Sends start of scan command to homing head
-Interfaces with homing head for getting line-ofsight (LOS) rate
-Senses impact event/proximity and issue warhead initiation command
 

venkat

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I have seen the video of the bomb being dropped with the LG kit. LCA or JAG...on the net...i saw the bomb was wobbling after release... may be in BR ... they are trying to sort that out i think...
 

Twinblade

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That is Super ..
Indeed it is. Now we know for sure that this variant will have a higher release range as the INS/GPS guidance and mid course correction will keep the trajectory within acceptable limits even when lobbed from a range and the terminal guidance will be with the laser seeker. It was also confirmed in an earlier DRDO release.

The development of the kit (Sudarshan) has matured to the level of guiding the bomb within 10 m CEP from its otherwise 400 m to 1000 m fall-off the target. Indian Air Force has shown keen interest in buying hundreds of these kits. The extension of kit's capability to further increase its range using global positioning system (GPS) INS is going on.
The change in nose section design means an imaging infra red (IIR) seeker derived from Nag ATGM seeker can be added at a later stage (like SPICE and AASM). Also it is possible that a variant of this bomb kit might contain a rocket motor (like AASM) or is compatible with wing kits (Like SPICE, J-DAM ER) because it would be very difficult to attain 40-50 Km range without either. I would be very surprised if such a range is achieved without either as even with strakes a bomb cannot be expected to have such a high glide ratio in unpowered flight. A vanilla JDAM kit manages around 28 Km with strakes added on the bomb body that improve the glide ratio. This 40-50 Km variant is also under testing with an eventual extension up to 100 Km.

Sudarshan has on board a flight control computer with microelectromechanical systems-based rate gyros. It also has high-precision linear ball-lead-screw actuators. A next-generation bomb (NG-LGB) is in the pipeline, but the scientists need to address the problem of rolling of the bomb, after its release. "The range of Sudrashan now is around 9 km if dropped from a normal altitude, and for the NG-LGB we hope to increase the range to 50 km," he said.
http://newindianexpress.com/nation/article1471238.ece

Meanwhile, Saraswat also said that the DRDO has conducted a flight of "guided bomb". "It's a bomb which can fly for about 40-50 or even more kilometres in a guided mode and it can be released from an aircraft".

He said the guided bomb is a totally indigenous effort, from designing, development and realisation including explosive content in them, as also guidance and control.
http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/india-takes-up-awacs-programme-can-penetrate-enemy-territory-113012500392_1.html

RCI Director G. Satheesh Reddy said plans were afoot to extend the range of guided smart-bombs from 30 km to 100 km.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/uavs-capable-of-launching-weapons-soon-drdo-chief/article5062289.ece

PS: Why not make this a sticky thread and use it to cover the progress of all air to ground munitions in Indian service ?
 

Twinblade

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A bit of info on the roll issues which plague the Sudarshan kit from an RFP for CFD analysis to solve the issue.

ADE is engaged with design & development of high precision laser guided bomb (LGB). It is
an air dropped munition that by help of its seeker guides itself towards the target. The associated
control law deflects the front canards to generate the desired trajectory. Figure 1 shows its overall
configuration. During its free flight, Air Weapon generates a roll which may be arising from
sources such as manufacturing asymmetry, small protrusions, separation dynamics or unsteady
atmospheric conditions. Though the roll is unintentional, it is generally not harmful, as small
amount of roll provides lateral stability to the flight. The control law is also such that it is able to
incorporate some amount roll while guidance is given to munition. The problem arises when roll
rate is more than 10 RPM which causes control law to be ineffective and it becomes difficult to
guide the munition.
In such instances, the canards are deflected so as to generate rolling moment for reducing the
RPM. It is observed that canards are not very effective in producing desired rolling moment due to
an "adverse roll" effect being generated from tail fin. It can be seen that the size of canards is
relatively large and when deflected, creates a large wake. The interaction of this wake with tail fins
is reason behind "adverse roll" effect. This phenomena leads to non linear rolling moment (w.r.t.
canard deflection). The non-linearity makes it very difficult to implement a roll control law in Air
Weapon.
Therefore, ADE has decided to modify the munition to a Free Rolling Tail configuration,
thereby, isolating the effect of tail roll on canard roll control effectiveness. However, whether the
free rolling tail will affect the overall aerodynamics of Air Weapon, is dictated by the roll rate of
tail, which is difficult to estimate.
ADE desires to investigate the "adverse roll" phenomena in Air Weapon by CFD-dynamics
studies with an objective to estimate the roll rate of tail fin under the influence of "induced" rolling
moment.
 

Twinblade

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Looks like the Sudarshan Kit has been adopted for a 250 Kg / 500 Lb bomb as well (on top)



The 'glide bomb' follow on to Sudarshan is supposed to finish development trials by "end of 2014".
 

Kunal Biswas

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The very next thing is Tejas Multi-rack full of 500lb PGMs ..
 

Twinblade

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A bit of info on the roll issues which plague the Sudarshan kit from an RFP for CFD analysis to solve the issue.

ADE is engaged with design & development of high precision laser guided bomb (LGB). It is
an air dropped munition that by help of its seeker guides itself towards the target. The associated
control law deflects the front canards to generate the desired trajectory. Figure 1 shows its overall
configuration. During its free flight, Air Weapon generates a roll which may be arising from
sources such as manufacturing asymmetry, small protrusions, separation dynamics or unsteady
atmospheric conditions. Though the roll is unintentional, it is generally not harmful, as small
amount of roll provides lateral stability to the flight. The control law is also such that it is able to
incorporate some amount roll while guidance is given to munition. The problem arises when roll
rate is more than 10 RPM which causes control law to be ineffective and it becomes difficult to
guide the munition.
In such instances, the canards are deflected so as to generate rolling moment for reducing the
RPM. It is observed that canards are not very effective in producing desired rolling moment due to
an "adverse roll" effect being generated from tail fin. It can be seen that the size of canards is
relatively large and when deflected, creates a large wake. The interaction of this wake with tail fins
is reason behind "adverse roll" effect. This phenomena leads to non linear rolling moment (w.r.t.
canard deflection). The non-linearity makes it very difficult to implement a roll control law in Air
Weapon.
Therefore, ADE has decided to modify the munition to a Free Rolling Tail configuration,
thereby, isolating the effect of tail roll on canard roll control effectiveness. However, whether the
free rolling tail will affect the overall aerodynamics of Air Weapon, is dictated by the roll rate of
tail, which is difficult to estimate.
ADE desires to investigate the "adverse roll" phenomena in Air Weapon by CFD-dynamics
studies with an objective to estimate the roll rate of tail fin under the influence of "induced" rolling
moment.
ARDE has recently called out for a tender for supply of tail units for 500GP bombs. Looks like the redesigned Sudarshan with rotating tail might go into testing soon.
 

Jagdish58

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Considering the Russians can't even make a proper JDAM equivalent, I doubt ADE will get to the level of AASM. You are talking about another lab of DRDO here. They would waste resources trying to make Escargot into a high altitude survival food. :pound:
Hope you are not dumb , during kargil War IAF engineers modified normal gravity bombs into laser guided in short period & used it effectively against paki rats

Sudarshan was supported by IAF , hence lot of knowledge would have exchange by IAF & ADE

Unfortunetely with indian money Rafale is going to come out of shut down suituation:toilet:
 

Twinblade

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ARDE has called out tender for time delay fuse, compatible with penetration bombs (80-1000 Kg class). This confirms the earlier news that a desi "bunker buster" is on the way.

Old news: (about EMP and bunker buster)-
 

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