AMCA - Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (HAL)

[Vamsi]

Had absolutely no idea that this was even possible for planes. How does it work?

Its sarcasm

 

[SavageKing456]

Yes. ACM Bhadauria said they are looking at 6th Gen concepts. Which is exactly what is needed. This time, it shouldn't be the same old "ASQR" crap. They need a dedicated team that shuttles between TACDE, ADA and College of Air Warfare. They need to develop the concept of a 6th Gen system of systems.


Had absolutely no idea that this was even possible for planes. How does it work?

US20060254255A1 - Aircraft propulsion system - Google Patents

To provide an aircraft propulsion system which can secure the optimum thrust and thrust vector for flight conditions, as well as the optimum sectional area for the engine, and which is highly compatible with the environment. An electrical generator is coupled to a turbofan engine, the electrical...

patents.google.com

Although this is not in use but still there's lot of research scope,we should not follow herd mentality after amca for 6th gen aircraft.

We should atleast begin research in that area and let's see what is the outcome if we managed to apply it then it would change how things work.

I'm serious

 

[Bleh]

If a twin seater is required, then certainly it will have to be.

It won't be (in all likelihood). I was asking about in BRF & it was pointed out that Tejas mark 1 and mark you should at least behave similarly enough for the LIFT to serve as common trainer.

 

[Trololo]

We must realize that in trying to catch up with Western military technology, we are trying to hit a fast moving target. Its clear that China and USA will field a 6th Gen in the early 2040s. I am talking with 2050 as the service date for our 6th Gen. This should be our goal if we aim to be a viable superpower. By 2050, Indian defence budget would be more than half the American budget, without the need to maintain an expensive list of foreign bases or forward positioning. Suffice it to say that in monetary terms, we would be putting in roughly the same amount of money as USA in military R&D in the late 2040s onwards (obviously, equal investment in R&D won't yeild us an equal result because we won't have the advantage of a knowledge based economy, knowledgr accrual, etc). Despite having such resources invested into R&D, if we are not aiming at being at least one step behind the Americans by then, it will be pointless. So we definitely should aim at fielding our 6th Gen fighter within 10-15 years of the Americans fielding theirs.

By 2036-37, ADA should be mostly free from AMCA Mk2 and there is no such thing as a TEDBF Mk2 yet. At that point, entire ADA and Air Force itself should start PDP on a 6th Gen fighter. Technologies required for it need to be developed continuously and in tandem with AMCA. While AMCA remains the focus area, there are technologies that will not make it into AMCA, but 6th gen fighter.


6th Gen is being defined as we speak and we don't know which way the meta will develop. But we do have some idea.
First off, the elimination of vertical stabilizers, canards, any other small feature on the fighter jet that can give a resonance return in the L-band. So while 5th Gen stealth is limited primarily to radar bands used for targeting (such as X and Ku bands), 6th Gen stealth will focus on being VLO even to early warning radars of L band. That alone affords a massive tactical advantage.
Another factor is that we need to think of 6th Gen as a system of systems. A 6th Gen fighter will only be a part of it. The wingman concept that is in its infancy with 5th Gen systems, will evolve to be far more distributed, connected, versatile and automated than the systems in design today.
Other areas include an adaptive cycle engine that will massively increase fuel efficiency and boost combat radius of 6th Gen planes.
Yet another area is CIWS. I believe 6th Gen planes will incorporate some form of missile and DEW based CIWS system, drastically improving their survivability beyond any 4th or 5th Gen airframe.
Increased computing power (enabled by increased electric power due to newer engines) will allow 6th Gen to launch coordinated cyber-EW attacks at unprcedented levels that will devastate enemy C2 networks and IADS.
Intelligent Vehicle Health Monitoring, self-healing and fault tolerance on 6th Gen planes will be a generation ahead of the 5th Gen counterparts.
6th Gen fighters will be more focused on air superiority role, thereby will likely be larger (Su-30, J-20 category), while also having a much larger internal weapons bay capability (entirely due to the adaptive cycle engines).

This is what I wrote about my understanding of a 6th Gen a few months ago:-




Yes some of these improvements, like advancements in AI, can be back-ported to 5th Gen. Yet others like L-band stealth, CIWS, larger weapons bay, better self-healing stealth materials can't be back-ported. Similar to how today you can only back-port part of the 5th Gen technologies to the 4th Gen airframe. So yeah, in 2035, it would be better to go for a new clean sheet design than to keep on sticking with AMCA upgrades till 2050. No doubt we should continue to buy and upgrade AMCAs, but the 6th Gen program needs to be started on the right time, or we lose our edge. The Chinese R&D would have matured by then, they'll be fielding formidable platforms against us.

In today's date it is possible to get massive amounts of onboard computing power in a small package with low power consumption. Fancy this architecture: A compute card with dual snapdragon 888s with 64 gb of onboard RAM. Slot 4 such cards together and interconnect the rams and persistent storages (regular tiny nvme ssds for e.g) using custom interconnects and you have a beast at hand with 32 CPU cores, 4 adreno 660 (idk how many gpu cores but each 660 is a monster). The hard part will be the software here which will need to tie all this together, along with the code that will run the onboard AI models. In fact such a system can be the entire mission computer.
I cited snapdragon 888 as an example. This can also be Indian RISC-V SoCs. So far the aircraft industry uses power pc based architectures for mission computers and microcontrollers for the FCS (since FCS is a tight rules based system you dont need massive computing power).
The RISC based system provides tremendous compute power with very low power consumption. We should absolutely leverage this. Commercial company ARM has shown what it can do. For EW the key thing will be onnboard electrical power generation. I do not know what is the current state of the art in this arena.

 

[FalconSlayers]

Spoiler: Source

 

[nixin]

View attachment 118628View attachment 118629

Spoiler: Source

After this only Uttam MK3 can be realised right ? But This one is for what purpose ?

 

[BlackViking]

View attachment 118628View attachment 118629

Spoiler: Source

How come the price variatons are so huge. I can understand variatons of 50-60% but compare L1 to the max, the latter is ~3.5 times the former. Could this be because of quality?

 

[UnderFingy]

How come the price variatons are so huge. I can understand variatons of 50-60% but compare L1 to the max, the latter is ~3.5 times the former. Could this be because of quality?

Maybe some companies have the infrastructure in place. So, they don't have to make new capital investments.

 

[ALPHASsquad47]

The reason why the price difference is so high :
1. Astra, MMRFIC, Cyient have limited foundaries of GaN(all in abroad). Cyient and Astra in future will make GaN amplifiers in India, Cyient guys have good collab with IITs and IISc.
2. BEL, Datta Patterns, RFMW have good sources for GaN, thanks to Israel, Sweden and UK. Even BEL has inhouse GaN foundaries but their PSU mentality.
3.Centum guys have great capital and sourced foundaries, meanwhile they had invested in GaN early. They have plans for setting up foudaries in India.

 

[Dessert Storm]

The reason why the price difference is so high :
1. Astra, MMRFIC, Cyient have limited foundaries of GaN(all in abroad). Cyient and Astra in future will make GaN amplifiers in India, Cyient guys have good collab with IITs and IISc.
2. BEL, Datta Patterns, RFMW have good sources for GaN, thanks to Israel, Sweden and UK. Even BEL has inhouse GaN foundaries but their PSU mentality.
3.Centum guys have great capital and sourced foundaries, meanwhile they had invested in GaN early. They have plans for setting up foudaries in India.

With reference to BEL. In light of points 2 & 3 mentioned, I am guessing, the price differential would largely be attributed to bloated costs on account of employee cost and overhead costs.

 

[ALPHASsquad47]

With reference to BEL. In light of points 2 & 3 mentioned, I am guessing, the price differential would largely be attributed to bloated costs on account of employee cost and overhead costs.

Hence the reason why they lost to Astra Microwave for Uttam MK-2 radar. They got the ToT for Uttam Mk-1 from LRDE(we all know why) but for MK2, they couldn't beat the pricing

 

[ALPHASsquad47]

After this only Uttam MK3 can be realised right ? But This one is for what purpose ?

This one is for Uttam Mk3. Radar of AMCA and maybe TEDBF. Super Su will have GaAs

 

[Dark Sorrow]

The reason why the price difference is so high :
1. Astra, MMRFIC, Cyient have limited foundaries of GaN(all in abroad).

Can you provide source for the same.
I thought these guys outsourced the foundry work.

 

[ALPHASsquad47]

Can you provide source for the same.
I thought these guys outsourced the foundry work.

Astra : http://www.astramwp.com/?page=subsidiaries
Rfmw (Sources): https://www.rfmw.com/userewavepreview.aspx?promo=929
Datta Patterns (Sources) : https://www.datapatternsindia.com/investors/creditors.php

 

[ALPHASsquad47]

Cyient guys they source from US.
BEL got ToT from Saab.

 

[ALPHASsquad47]

Centum is bit complicated, it's either from UK or US sourced, but they have plans for foundaries in India

 

[ALPHASsquad47]

Centum is bit complicated, it's either from UK or US sourced, but they have plans for foundaries in India

Astra Microwave have a fully owned foundry but the production is bit low

 

[Dark Sorrow]

Astra : http://www.astramwp.com/?page=subsidiaries
Rfmw (Sources): https://www.rfmw.com/userewavepreview.aspx?promo=929
Datta Patterns (Sources) : https://www.datapatternsindia.com/investors/creditors.php

None of the articles point to a foundry. As for Astra microwave it is mentions fabless.

 

[Kalkioftoday]

This one is for Uttam Mk3. Radar of AMCA and maybe TEDBF. Super Su will have GaAs

Really? AMCA radar? Development complete so early? Man i am sorry but i am having a hard time believing this. About the Uttam mk2, according to Mr. Indranil Roy Uttam mk2 most probably going to have GaN based TSA antennas. And despite having GaN foundry why are we going for GaAs for Super Sukhoi?

 

[Lonewolf]

Really? AMCA radar? Development complete so early? Man i am sorry but i am having a hard time believing this. About the Uttam mk2, according to Mr. Indranil Roy Uttam mk2 most probably going to have GaN based TSA antennas. And despite having GaN foundry why are we going for GaAs for Super Sukhoi?

Not ready but improving further