DRDO, PSU and Private Defence Sector News

nitesh

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Bang on target

The DRDO’s Armament Research and Development Establishment has a road map ready for smarter futuristic products.


The Pinaka Launcher on display at the Republic Day parade rehearsal at Rajpath in New Delhi on January 21, 2007.


A DRDO centre in Pune that is proud of its varied accomplishments is the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE). Its most visible success stories are INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) rifles, Pinaka, the deadly multi-barrel rocket launcher (MBRL), and warheads for missiles and torpedoes, but it also has road maps for futuristic products such as guided rockets and precision-guided munition.

Anil M. Datar, Director (ARDE), said: “The ARDE has successfully completed the Pinaka project. It is in production now. The Army has ordered Pinaka systems worth Rs.1,300 crore for two regiments. Each regiment will have 18 launchers and associated vehicles. Pinaka is a major achievement of ours.”

Pinaka

A Pinaka MBRL, that is, a single launcher built on a Tatra truck, has two pods of six rockets each. Six launchers constitute a battery. The Army generally deploys a battery that has a total of 72 rockets. All the 72 rockets can be fired in 44 seconds, taking out an area of 1 sq km. Each launcher can fire in a different direction too. The system has the flexibility to fire all the rockets in one go or only a few.

“This is possible because we have provided a computer for fire control,”
said Datar. There is a command post linking together all the six launchers in a battery. Each launcher has an individual computer, which enables it to function autonomously in case it gets separated from the other five vehicles in a war.

K.J. Daniel, Project Director, Pinaka, calls it “a system” and explains how massive each system is. A Pinaka battery has six launchers, six loader vehicles, six replenishment vehicles, two vehicles for ferrying the command post and a vehicle for carrying the meteorological radar, which will provide data on winds. “Today, we have orders for two regiments. In the future, we will have orders for 12 regiments,” said Daniel.

INSAS rifle


Daksh, the robot developed by R&DE(E) for handling improvised explosive devices.


Developing the INSAS rifle with 5.56-mm calibre was another big achievement for the ARDE. It went into production in 1993. And about 1 million INSAS rifles have been inducted into the Army so far. In fact, INSAS is a family of arms and ammunition, comprising a rifle and a light machine gun. The firing capabilities of the weapons are enhanced by daylight telescope and night vision. With the Army keen on having more effective ammunition for a short range of 200 metres, the ARDE busied itself with designing such ammunition. The first phase of trials is complete and the second phase will begin in October.

The ARDE will soon build Pinaka rockets with a longer range of 60 km compared with the present 40 km and make them smarter too. These rockets will have a combination of inertial guidance systems and global positioning systems. Datar described such guided rockets as “something between ordinary rockets and missiles”. Missiles are expensive because they have precise guidance systems. “In the next five years, we will have guided rockets. This is a cheaper way to meet the challenge of getting at high-value targets with high accuracy. In the future, we may go for rocket systems with a 120-km range,” Datar said.

The ARDE, which produced the gun barrel for India’s main battle tank Arjun, is now coming up with a special type of ammunition called Fin Stabilised Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (FSAPDS) with a calibre of 120 mm. The FSAPDS will also be developed for T-72 and T-90 tanks, which have guns of different calibres. The FSAPDS has already been developed for the infantry combat vehicle (ICV), which needed ammunition with a 40-mm calibre. The ARDE is now on the job of developing it with 30-mm calibre for the futuristic ICV.

The canopy severance system (CSS) for fighter aircraft in trouble is a different kettle of fish. When there is an emergency on board a jet fighter, the pilot has to eject through the canopy overhead without getting hurt. This requires breaking the canopy to make a path for the pilot. This is called CSS and the clean-cut is achieved by power cartridges that function with precise timings and pressure. Since the IAF has aircraft acquired from Russia, France and the United Kingdom, the ARDE developed indigenous power cartridges for them so that the IAF will not be dependent on these aircraft manufacturers for cartridges. The ARDE has developed 62 types of power cartridges, matching the performance of the original cartridges. “This is a service that the IAF acknowledges,” said ARDE officials.


Warheads & anti-tank ammunition


Developing warheads for missiles and torpedoes is an area of core competence of the centre. All missiles – Agni, Prithvi, Trishul, Akash and Nag – developed by the DRDO have warheads made by the ARDE. It is working on futuristic warheads, such as aimable warheads or those with fragment generators. It recently developed a 450-kg high-speed, low-drag bomb, which was a complete indigenisation of the Russian variety and with added lethality.

The ARDE personnel are happy that the Army has placed orders for an innovative anti-tank ammunition developed by them. It gets initiated only when a battle tank passes over it, and not a truck or a car. Its sense of discrimination is based on seismic and magnetic sensors. Datar explained: “We have collected signatures of different kinds of vehicles, what kind of vibrations they create when they move. The data is fed into the munition’s system. When a tank is moving, it will provide a signature. The processor tries to match it with the stored signatures. If it matches, it gives a signal and the munition explodes.”

An important area where the ARDE will focus on is precision-guided munition. It will develop guided artillery shells or gun-fired ammunition. The first of such precision-guided munition will be cannon-launched.
 

nitesh

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not sure what is supposed to be achieved by this post ?

the technologies being described are decades behind. unless you are saying htat that is what the sanctins have done to the country ?

also the products shown are school-book material

again not sure what you are trying to tell us , please ?
I am not able to understand what you are tying to achieve by your post?

Technologies are decades behind :rofl: Are you serious here?
 

nitesh

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Material innovation

THE Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL) is one of the oldest DRDO laboratories. It had its genesis in 1949 when the Government of India invited J.E. Keyston of the Royal Naval Scientific Services of the United Kingdom to advise it on establishing a scientific organisation to assist the Indian Navy.

Keyston recommended the setting up of two laboratories. Thus came up the Naval Chemical and Metallurgical Laboratory in Mumbai in 1953 and the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory in Kochi. G.E. Gale, who laid the foundation for naval research in India, set up the Mumbai laboratory in a renovated paint shop at the naval dockyard there. Renamed NMRL in 1995, it was relocated to Ambernath, 60 km from Mumbai, in 1997.

According to S.C. Sharma and C. Durgaprasad, Group Head and Deputy Group Head respectively, of the Technology Management Group, the NMRL pursues research in six areas: protective technologies, marine materials and technology, energy science and technology, marine biotechnology, polymers, and ceramics.

Dhirendra Kumar, Associate Director and head of the Protective Technologies Group, said the NMRL had developed paints that protect the structure of ships, both inside and outside. “One of our achievements in recent years is the development of non-skid paint [for aircraft to land on the flight decks of ships safely]. We have also developed solvent-free anti-corrosion paints and fire-retardant intumescent paint,” he said.

They can be used in electrical installations, high-rise buildings and rail coaches. The group is working on paints for underwater structures. “We are working on smart coating, thermally stable organic coating and corrosion-sensing coatings,” Dhirendra Kumar said.

The Energy Science and Technology Group has taken the science of fuel cells into industrial products. “We are involved primarily in the development of cathodes, electrode components and fuel cells. Our achievement is the fuel cell-power driven electric car, DRDO-REVA,” said J. Rangarajan, Associate Director of the division.

“Our goal is self-sufficiency in all fuel cells,” Rangarajan noted. The group has built a skid-mounted 15-KW generator based on phosphoric acid fuel cell technology, which can be a mobile source of electricity.

The Polymer Division’s success story is in developing anti-fouling paints for the underwater hull of ships, said B.C. Chakraborty, the division’s chief. Underwater structures of naval vessels attract barnacles that settle in the hull and burgeon into a thick mass.

“This reduces the speed of vessels and affects the acoustic transmission of their sonars. So we developed technologies for coating which resist the settlement of barnacles,” said J. Narayana Das, Director, NMRL.

The division has developed high-strength polymeric rubbing fenders to protect the hull from damage during docking. It is a substitute for teak wood fenders. High-strength polymer composites in combination with ceramics are also being developed as armour for vehicles against armour-piercing ammunition.

The Ceramics Division, headed by N.M. Gokhale, has developed toughened ceramics for use in armours. It has also come up with piezo composite materials that emit electrical charge on applied force. They are useful for mine-hunting sonars and flank arrays for submarines.

“In the Marine Materials Department,” said Vinay Deshmukh, a scientist, “we develop different types of naval steels, their welding consumables, aluminium alloys, light-weight structures, composites and metal matrixes.” Titanium welding is another of its strengths. The department is now focussing on developing high-strength steels for building ships and submarines.

The Marine Biotechnology Group, headed by Pradeep Kumar, has innovatively used bacteria to disperse oil spills. “We have isolated a group of five bacteria. We did trials in the dockyard in Mumbai and the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam, in association with the Coast Guard,” he said. The division has also developed fibre-optic biosensors.

The NMRL has ventured into what Narayana Das calls “nationally relevant” areas. It has developed a filter to provide arsenic-free drinking water. Arsenic poisoning in the eastern belt has affected an estimated 6.6 crore people.

“The filters are affordable for families living below the poverty line. We have transferred the technology to non-governmental organisations, which are selling them at Rs.700 to Rs.800 a unit. They have already sold 16,000 units. For its arsenic removal technology, the NMRL was given the Defence Technology Spin-off award for 2007,”
said Narayana Das.
 

roma

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nitesh-ji
firstly to get things in the right perspective, i am very thankful indeed for your many posts about the great and even astounding developments taking place in the various indian defence research establishments, many of which i would have been absollutely ignorant about if not for your time and effort in posting them.

it's just that regarding gallium arsenide ( to be accurate ) - it's an age old material , so too with silicone etc and the devices pictured in one of those posts are the standard stuff you see in textbooks

now , having read more and more of the thread , i can see that what i pointed out is just in a manner of speaking just a drop in the ocean , so do take that in perspective.

no argument going here - was just a bit surprised at that particular post .

meanwhile , thanks for keeping us all informed by your great posting
 

nitesh

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Roma, I thought the same thing when you have written your post, see microprocessor or silicon materials are invented long time back but converting them in to something useful product is a research work. Till now people are struggling to come up with GaN material for use in AESA radar. Still most countries even successful are in nascent stage of development. Having said that defense equipment does not use normal processors they use specialized chips which has to be developed in house only hence it might sounds like working backwards but sometimes it is stepping stone towards success.

No personal grudges here :)
 

Sabir

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R&DE(E)'s innovative and customised solutions for Indian Army

T.S. SUBRAMANIAN
The DRDO’s Research and Development Establishment (Engineers) is focussing on innovative and customised solutions for the armed forces.


ENORMOUS machines are lined up on a maidan. One of them, painted in olive green, looks like a huge stack of massive boxes piled up on wheels. But as the engine revs up, the boxes open and buoys balloon out. In no time, the Amphibious Floating Bridge and Ferry System (AFFS) is ready to carry battle tanks and trucks across rivers.
Some distance away stands an enormous Tatra truck with platforms behind the driver’s cabin. At the touch of a button, five such platforms, each 15 metres long, open out and form a 75-m-long bridge on telescopic legs in 90 minutes. This bridge, Sarvatra, can withstand 10,000 passes of battle tanks.
Nearby is what looks like a modified battle tank, with massive hammers at the end of flails. As the machine erupts to life, the hammers smash mines buried up to a depth of 25 cm in the ground, tossing them out and clearing a 4-metre-wide safe lane for vehicles to pass. This is the Counter Mine Flail T-72.
“We are a multifaceted organisation,” said B. Rajagopalan, Director, Research and Development Establishment (Engineers), of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), in Pune. “Our forte is innovative engineering. All our products are 100 per cent indigenous.”
Pune, along with Ambernath and Ahmednagar, all in Maharashtra, is one of the hubs of the DRDO, which provides a broad array of technologies to the Indian armed forces. With 52 laboratories across the country, the DRDO is one of the biggest defence R&D organisations in the world.
W. Selvamurthy, Chief Controller (Life Sciences and Human Resources), DRDO, summed it up: “No country has an organisation like DRDO, which delivers a broad spectrum of technologies and systems such as battle tanks, families of missiles, radars, torpedoes and sonars, electronic warfare systems, arms and ammunition including the INSAS [Indian Small Arms System], the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launcher, shelters for protection against nuclear, chemical and biological warfare, bio-digesters, cream to fight frostbite, and so on.”
Pune has four DRDO centres: the R&DE(E), the Armaments Research and Development Establishment, the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory and the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, which offers M.Tech and Ph.D programmes. R&DE(E)’s engineers built the Dakshin Gangotri and Maitri, India’s research stations at Antarctica. Work on the third research station at Antarctica is set to begin.
The work done by the R&DE(E) in re-engineering the Tatra truck into the Sarvatra is awesome. With the help of telescopic legs, the height of the bridge can be adjusted from 2.5 m to 6 m so that it is not easily visible to the enemy. The spans are made of a light but strong alloy of aluminium, magnesium and zinc.
India’s main battle tank, Arjun, has taken the “avatar” of a bridge laying tank (BLT). The R&DE(E) did this by replacing the tank’s gun and turret with the bridge launcher. The bridge is cantilevered over chasms or across rivers to cover a distance of 26 m with a width of 4 m. The BLT-Arjun carries two halves of a bridge. At a wet or dry gap, the launcher slides the two parts and docks them to each other in such a way that the far end of the second half touches the other bank. The BLT then crosses the bridge, turns around, retrieves the bridge after undocking its two halves, folds it and is ready to move with the armoured column. U.R. Gautam, Joint Director R&DE(E), called it “a great piece of engineering”.



The laboratory has also modified the T-72 battle tank into a BLT, which can launch a bridge 20-m long and 4-m wide in just five minutes. The tank loses its gun and turret, but the driver’s compartments remain to provide a clear view to manoeuvre it. The system has an anti-aircraft gun to guard against aerial attacks and a smoke discharger to lay the bridge under a smoke-screen. It has beta-light markers to guide the traffic at night. The Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi in Chennai produces the BLT T-72s. The Army has bought 12 of them and is likely to place orders for more.
The Combat Engineering Group led by N.B. Vijayakumar came up with the Counter Mine Flail by fitting flails and hammers to the T-72 tank. “No other country except Germany has done this on a tank,” said Gautam.
The Counter Mine Flail has a series of 10-kg hammers that pulverise mines by beating them at 400 revolutions a minute, said Naresh Kumar, a scientist. “The Counter Mine Flail T-72 has a separate power source and does not tap the T-72 main engine power,” he added.
Another innovation is a machine that lays mats made of aluminium alloy to help vehicles in marshy terrain. The AFFS metamorphoses from a 10-m-long box-on-wheels into bridge-cum-ferry, which is 28.4-m long and 3.6-m wide in just nine minutes. “The whole body is watertight. It can also be used as a ramp,” said Gautam.
The R&DE(E) personnel have also built a series of launchers (platforms with power and air supply) for firing missiles such as Agni, Akash, Prithvi and Trishul. Rajagopalan is particularly proud of the launcher plus control system built for the K-15 missile that will be fired from INS Arihant, the nuclear-powered submarine.
In a brilliant piece of engineering, the teams headed by V.V. Parlikar and P.M. Kurulkar, both Joint Directors, modified the T-72 battle tank’s chassis into a launcher system for firing surface-to-air Akash missiles. The Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) at Avadi helped them modify the T-72 for this role. The launcher’s electrical systems are servo-driven. The swivelling launcher has a 360-degree firing freedom. “The launcher has proved its worth with 60 flights of Akash taking off from it. The IAF has placed orders for 16 launcher systems on trailers,” Parlikar and Kurulkar said.
Daksh speaks for the ingenuity of the R&DE(E). It is a battery-operated robot on wheels and its primary role is to recover improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It locates IEDs with an X-ray machine, picks them up with a gripper-arm and defuses them with a jet of water. It has a shotgun, which can break open locked doors, and it can scan cars for explosives. Daksh can also climb staircases, negotiate steep slopes, navigate narrow corridors and tow vehicles. Alok Mukherjee, a scientist, said: “With a master control station (MCS), it can be remotely controlled over a range of 500 m in line of sight or within buildings. Ninety per cent of the robot’s components are indigenous. The Army has placed orders for 20 Dakshs.”
Research is under way at the Composites Research Centre (CRC) of the laboratory on light-weight structures. According to Kiran Akella, a scientist, the centre has developed a bridge made of carbon-epoxy composites. This is 30 per cent lighter than the ones made of aluminium. The 5-m-long bridge weighs just 1.2 tonnes, but it can carry a 70-tonne battle tank. Fibre-optic sensors embedded in the bridge help it monitor itself.
According to Rajagopalan, the R&DE(E), with support from the Navy, has ventured into building the superstructure of Corvette-class warships with carbon-epoxy composites. Next would be the development of ship hulls with fibre-reinforced plastic. The centre is developing hulls made of composites and ceramic armour for infantry combat vehicles.
An offshoot of composites research is the development of hip implants. Makarand Joshi, who conceived it, explains that imported hip transplants, made of steel, are expensive and are suited only for the European body structure.
“We have customised the implant for individuals,” Joshi said. It has been tested on 40 cadavers. Clinical trials will start soon after the Ethics Committee of the Medical Council of India clears it.

Defence engine
 

bengalraider

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i saw two sarvatra's moving towards ghaziabad on the 19th of September at about 8:15pm anyone her know where they were headed.this was near akshardham.
 

RPK

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More offshoring by aerospace cos- Airlines / Aviation-Transportation-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times

BANGALORE: Aerospace companies, including Indian aviation majors, are coming out with new business models as they seek high levels of design and
production. Long-term contracts by offshoring and outsourcing work to private firms and SMEs in India is one among them.

Airbus, the world’s largest plane maker, for instance, is planning to offshore 20% of its overall engineering work, and a major chunk of it will go to India followed by Russia and China, Airbus Engineering Centre head Eugen Welte said at the Aerospace Supply Chain Symposium held at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B), on Saturday. “As we are getting the right skills, we will grow engineering strength to 400 by the year 2012, which is quite aggressive by European standards,” Mr Welte said.

He said Airbus’ parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) has started research and development in India, where it will form new partnerships with Indian institutes, laboratories and universities. Also, plans for a stateof-the-art EADS campus, frozen for some time now, are taking shape.

Airbus, which counts Quest Global, HCL and Infosys among its preferred vendors in India, has started projects such as flight management system and simulation here. “Now, we will be doing more high-end work dealing with aerodynamics, ” he said. Dr Roger Moser, faculty at IIM-Bangalore, said that the work offshored by companies such as Airbus may be worth a few million euros right now, but in coming years it would turn into a few hundred million euros.

Bejoy George, chief marketing officer at tech company QuEST Global, said there is a need for a national aerospace policy in India to encourage this sector, as India can expect to win about 25% of offshore engineering spend, or about $50 billion, due to various advantages,like availability of skilled and trained English speaking manpower, cost advantages, excellent offshore management processes.

Not just western companies, but even Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), India’s largest aerospace firm, is seeing the need to increase outsourcing to private companies. HAL, which currently outsources just 8% (Rs 291 crore) and does 92% work in-house, has plans to increase outsourcing to 25% (Rs 1750 crore) and do 75% work in-house in the near future, according to KG Subramony, HAL general manager.

“The opportunity is huge as defence procurement is Rs 25,000 crore per annum.In future programs we would like to be more as an integrator and use our facilities for final assembly and testing” he said. These future programs include Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft(MMRCA), light combat helicopters for Army and Navy, multi role transport aircraft and fifth generation aircraft, “which can only happen with the support of our vendors”.

HAL chairman Ashok Nayak said the process of transformation has begun in the aerospace industry and there is a need to get the support from the Indian private firms and SMEs. He said HAL wants to shed the military tag and enter into the civil market, where it can come up with innovative business models and products and develop risk-sharing relationship with private firms. “ Some of the SME’s have now come to a stage, where they can do high end aeronautical work”, he said.

According to Jayant D Patil, vicepresident of Larsen & Toubro, in the next 15 years, one-third of the world’s aircraft will be bought in the Apac region, opening new opportunities of supply chain.
 

pavanvenkatesh

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Achivements of DRDO

Here's an attachment of the achivements of DRDO when they faced so many hurdles after testing agni missles and there considerable success in the field of missle defense and technologies there are two PDF files from frontline magazine which contains story about our missle defense and the other an exclusive with formar DRDO chief M.Natarajan

:dfi-1: :india:
 

RPK

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HAL to produce crucial parts of Boeing-777s in Bangalore

fullstory


New Delhi, Oct 22 (PTI) State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd would now be producing and assembling 'flaperons' of Boeing-777s which are used for take-offs, landings and manoeuvering of these sophisticated airplanes.

An agreement to this effect was signed between HAL and Boeing Company here today for the production of flaperons for use on Boeing?s 777 series commercial jetliner. The work will be performed in Bangalore, a Boeing spokesperson said.

HAL is expected to deliver its first flaperon assembly to Boeing "within the next few years", she said.

The B-777 flaperons are a highly complex composite assembly that is instrumental in controlling the airplane?s maneuverability in flight. Referred to as a 'control surface', the flaperons work both as an aileron to control roll and as a flap to control a plane's lift.
 

nitesh

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Defence Supplies, Joint Development High on Pallam Raju’s 3-Day Visit to Belarus

India has sought from the erstwhile Soviet Republic supplies of opto-electronics for armament systems for tanks and combat vehicles, upgradation of BMP-2, T-72 and T-90 tanks including Fire Control Systems, Commander Panoramic Sights, Digital Ballistic Computer and missile firing capability. The Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) is holding talks with M/s Teatradr for technology, equipment and spares for refurbishing the OSA-AK missiles for the IAF.

The DRDO signed a memorandum with the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in December last year to set up a Joint R&D Centre at Minsk. While Belarus will provide land for the Centre at the Powder Metallurgy Institute campus, India will bear the construction costs. The detailed project report by DRDO has already been submitted to Belarus and the first joint discussion is due early next year. DRDO has also signed contracts worth $2.6 million with various institutes under the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus for joint R&D of technologies in Laser and Powder Metallurgy. Shri Pallam Raju will visit ‘Agat’, the state scientific research enterprise, on Monday, October 26, which has been collaborating with the DRDO for over 15 years and the two institutions are likely to enter into a long-term agreement soon. Twelve personnel from Belarus have undergone joint training in defence related programmes in India under the ITEC programme since last year.
 

pavanvenkatesh

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IRDE Develops new gun sights

http://www.drdo.gov.in/pub/nl/feb07/feb07.pdf

Instruments Research & Development Establishment (IRDE),Dehradun, has developed the prototype of Holographic Sight for Rifle and Carbine based on GSQR from the Army HQrs. This is the first application in India of holography for small arms. The holographic sight has the advantage of shooting with both
eyes open along with faster target acquisition (speed) and improved accuracy. It also leaves no signature to be detected by the enemy. The device is very useful for soldiers in Close Quarter Battle (CQB) and Counterinsurgency operations , where speed is very critical.Holographic reticle pattern is embedded in the see-through window of this device. Basically it is a transmission hologram that generates the virtual image of reticle on illumination by the laser diode. The shooter looks through this transparent window in which the projected holographic reticle acts as an aim point, superimposed on the target. If this window is partly damaged in the battlefield, the holographic reticle remains intact in the unbroken part and shooter can still engage the target.The development of indigenous holographic sight involves development of various other technologies like recording and reconstruction of reticlehologram; fabrication of holographic lens for collimation and temperature compensation; and microcontroller-based power variation of bare laser diode. All these technologies were successfully developed at IRDE, Dehradun. The developed prototype is technologically at par with the imported product,in terms of its functions and features, like brightness control, auto-shut down, low-battery indicator, etc. The prototype is integrated with INSAS rifle and was recently demonstrated to the Army.

:goodstuff:
 

ppgj

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DRDO Plans New Lethal Weapons

The state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is in the process of developing a multi-warhead missile technology with nuclear capability. Therefore, DRDO will enable a single rocket to deliver multiple warheads and even non-conventional nuclear systems at different targets

The DRDO has been working extensively to develop a homegrown technology that would enable a single-rocket-multiple warhead system and is ready to make it happen in a few years. The current missiles are conventional systems that allow the delivery of one warhead at a time. The DRDO is also applying its resources that will certify the technology that will help India deploy multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV) on its missiles.

DRDO scientists indicated that the platform for re-entry vehicles would be different from the indigenously developed ‘Agni’ missiles. The guidance system will have a high degree of accuracy to offset even a small circular error of probability or a negligible deviation from the intended target. Even the warheads will be customized to a small size for achieving the target. Since the destructive potential of smaller warheads on multiple vehicles is low, these warheads will have to hit the intended targets at the accurate point and optimise the damage, added the DRDO scientists.

While India prides itself with such advanced defence technology, the current development could also contradict the principle of nuclear restraint.

The technology in the MIRV system was conceived in the early 1960s by the to increase the limited capacity of its nuclear submarines carrying ballistic missiles. This prompted Russia (then USSR) to develop similar technology. Eventually, the two countries signed several strategic arms limitation agreements, reducing the number and weight of the warheads.

DRDO Plans New Lethal Weapons | India Defence Online
 

nitesh

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Years after coffingate, indigenous, low-cost aluminium caskets await govt nod

This is one casket that might get a premature burial. The Research and Development Establishment (Engineers), Pune, which had been asked to develop aluminium caskets to fit Indian parameters in 2004, delivered the goods a year later. It also developed nylon body bags alongside to fit Indian requirements. However, with the Centre putting off a decision on using them, the effort threatens to go waste.

It is seemingly immaterial that the cost stands reduced to less than one-third the rate at which the foreign version was imported during the Kargil war or that it is relatively lightweight and easy to stack. Even the prototype of the nylon fabric body bags, critical in war zones and disaster-hit areas, has been ready for use for the last four years and awaits the Defence Ministry’s approval.

It was barely two months ago, on August 22, that the CBI chargesheet in the 2002 Coffingate scam named three Indian Army officials and a US company while exonerating then defence minister George Fernandes. The scam pertained to the alleged conspiracy related to import of overpriced, substandard aluminium caskets and body bags for Indian soldiers who died on the battlefield. It is this scam which led to the Research and Development Establishment being asked to make aluminium caskets as per Indian requirements.

The casket, weighing only 42 kg, even lighter than the originally targeted 45 kg and coming at a competitive price tag of around Rs 40,000, was designed, developed as per Ministry specifications and submitted in October 2005 to the Indian Army. The R&DE is still awaiting a response, since the casket, and body bags, have great potential for civilian use, especially in strife-torn areas — the Naxal strike in Gadchiroli being a good example.

Even major hospitals are looking for such a solution for transportation of dead bodies by air and a few fabrication companies in Pune are ready to manufacture it on a commercial basis. In fact, the prototype of the casket was fabricated at a private company in Pune.

“It was almost a full year’s job as weight of the casket was the key issue to be resolved. The model available as per UN standards weighed around 55 kg. We started off by talking to doctors at AFMC and even some civilian doctors to arrive at the ideal specifications to accommodate the body of an Indian, unlike the imported one that was made as per Caucasian body specifications. We finally settled for six ft and 8-inch length, two ft and 4-inch width, one ft and 5-inch height and a load bearing capacity of 100 kg,” Sivanandan A K, scientist at R&DE, in charge of designing and developing the prototype four years ago, told The Indian Express.

“The casket we developed is made of 1.6mm thick commercial grade aluminium and we managed to reduce its weight to 42 kg and sufficient structural stability to stack three caskets one over the other, where the one at the bottom could bear a weight of up to 300 kg without any problem,” he said. The casket is made of two pieces that undergo hermetic sealing in a manner that the body doesn’t decompose for 8-10 hours. “We also developed the body bags which could withstand severe cold ( - 40 degree C) and heat ( +70 degree C),” he added.
 

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DRDO grip under stress

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The Centre is set to come out with a new military goods purchase policy that is designed to end the monopoly of the government-run Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

The DRDO alone develops, patents, formulates and devises products for the army, navy and the air force.

Defence minister A.K. Antony said here today the latest defence procurement policy (DPP) to be issued on November 1 would allow tenders to be issued to Indian companies. These firms may then scout the world markets for joint ventures with multinational defence companies for transfer of technology and production.
This new proviso — being allowed in the DPP for the first time — is under a new category through which the government will procure military hardware. The category is called “Buy and Make (Indian)”.

“The move is primarily aimed at encouraging pro-active participation by the Indian industry, which could establish joint venture production arrangements with any foreign manufacturer,” the minister said.

The practice so far has been to issue requests for proposals (RFPs) to known international arms majors who would then seek to tie up with Indian companies if their offers were accepted under the offsets policy.

The offsets policy mandates that at least 30 per cent of the value of an order — of Rs 300 crore and above — from the armed forces should be re-invested in defence production or procurement by the vendor in India.

Indian defence purchases vary from year to year. The capital expenditure earmarked for purchases in the current budget for the army, navy and the air force is nearly Rs 50,000 crore.

Antony announced the policy amendment at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. “This would help Indian industry to work out the technological requirements and build in-house capabilities in order to meet the future defence requirements. I am sure that the industry will respond positively to this proposal.”

Antony said the policy was being made more transparent. All requests for information (RFI) to companies will be put up on the defence ministry’s website. The ministry will also invite industry representatives to participate in meetings for defence acquisition planning.

In a separate meeting at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik said the current defence procurement policy should be simplified.
 

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