India's Current & Future UAVs & UCAVs

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Defcon 1]

To better arm its troops in the border state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army is buying 20 man-portable, mini unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can be deployed to gather intelligence and mount surveillance.

The mini-UAVs are being bought by the Udhampur-based Northern Army Command. Earlier this month, it issued a tender open to global original equipment manufacturers.
Sources in the Northern Army Command said the mini-UAVs will augment the Israeli UAVs that the over three lakh troops in Jammu and Kashmir already use.

"The tender was issued earlier this month and we expect the mini-UAV manufacturers to respond by the beginning of September this year. After perusal of the proposals, the orders will be placed for the 20 mini-UAVs required at present," sources said.

The procurement is being made under the Northern Army Commander's special financial powers as "the quantity is less and costs low", the source said.

The mini-UAV that the troops will get will weigh less than 10 kg and can be transported on the shoulders of a trooper. The mini-UAV will have cameras, including an infrared one, for night use. It also comes equipped with recording devices and sensors for mounting surveillance.

"We have asked for mini-UAVs that can be assembled by the troops themselves within 20 minutes and deployed for about an hour over a specific area of about five-km radius," sources said.

The mini-UAVs will be propelled by an electric motor and hence it will be literally noise-free once it attains a height of 500 metres above ground level. This will help it avoid detection.

The ceiling for this flying machine will be 1,000 metres above ground level. It will have a cruise speed of about 40 knots or over 70 kmph.

Indian armed forces are at present using about 100 Searcher-II and 60 Heron UAVs, both from the Israeli stable.

India is also in the process of developing indigenous UAVs such as Nishant and Rustom.

Defence News - Army to get 20 UAVs for Valley

 

[Daredevil]

Since our Armed Forces use a variety of ISraeli UAV's, I thought I will post this pdf file which summarises all Israeli UAV's and the future technology of UAV's. Worth a read.

[pdf]http://www.icas.org/ICAS_ARCHIVE_CD1998-2010/ICAS2004/PAPERS/519.PDF[/pdf]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Drsomnath999]

Rustom-2 (H) HALE UAV to have its first flight in early 2014

Development of Rustom-2 (H) HALE UAV will shift into higher gears from next year, when Agencies will start testing components for Rustom-2 (H) HALE UAV, According to media reports first prototype will be ready by end of 2013 and first flight is likely to occur in first quarter of 2014.

Designing of Rustom-2 has been completed, and agencies are selecting a development partner for which major Private sector defence companies have given their proposal, Rustom-2 (H) HALE UAV will be UAV in class of American RQ-1 Predator.

Rustom-2 will have flight endurance of over 24 hours and will be able to operate above 30000 ft, DRDO plans to complete the entire test and enter its production by end of 2016. All three Services have shown keen Interest in the Project and have their firm backing on this Rustom-2 project.

Rustom-2 MK-2 will carry External Weapons like American RQ-1 Predator. As per sources Army and Navy have shown keen interest in this variant .India is looking to replace Israeli made UAV in its current fleet with indigenously made Rustom-1 and Rustom-2.

Rustom-2 Mk-2 will be test bed of lot of technologies which will ultimately find its place in India's UCAV Project Aura, which will take to air by 2020, but the Project will officially go on line only after Rustom-2 enters Production in 2016.

Rustom-2 (H) HALE UAV to have its first flight in early 2014 | idrw.org

 

[agentperry]

why no aerodynamics on drdo uavs???? its turboprop. fine. i agree range and efficincy is high but still aerodynamics and fine tuning can improve it

 

[rahulrds1]

DTU's UAV Aarush X1 unveiled.

www_timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/DRDO-director-general-unveils-Delhi-Technological-Universitys-Aarush-X1/articleshow/17064769.cms
www_dceuav.com/website/
www_dceuav.com/website/aarush.php

 

[Kunal Biswas]

DTU's UAV Aarush X1 unveiled.

www_timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/DRDO-director-general-unveils-Delhi-Technological-Universitys-Aarush-X1/articleshow/17064769.cms
www_dceuav.com/website/
www_dceuav.com/website/aarush.php

 

[Shaitan]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Rustom 2 looks unique..

 

[Defcon 1]

Indian Stealth Bomber No Longer a Secret

On May 31, the chief of India's Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) Vijay Saraswat was guest of honour at a little-known aerospace seminar in Linkoping, Sweden. The missile scientist took a spin in a Swedish Saab Gripen fighter jet, giving local journalists a fun photo-opportunity. But nestled in an elaborate presentation Saraswat later made at the seminar was something that had never been seen before: The first ever design images of an Indian military project that's been officially designated secret, one that neither drdo nor any other arm of the Ministry of Defence will say anything about. The pictures were of the Indian Unmanned Strike Air Vehicle (IUSAV), codenamed Aura, an advanced unmanned stealth bomber that resembles classified experimental Cold War aircraft rather than anything India has ever been known to attempt.
While the prospect and development of such an aircraft is enormously complicated, iusav is being built for a simple mission profile: Take off under remote control by a ground crew, enter enemy airspace undetected and virtually invisible to enemy radars, deploy strike weapons against designated targets and return to base. In one official document, the Aura is described as a "unmanned self-defending reconnaissance aircraft", indicating that it will also serve as a spy platform capable of evading missiles if fired upon. drdo aims to deliver the highly complex stealth bomber to the Indian Air Force (IAF) in seven to eight years.
The secret Aura programme currently functions on a Rs.100-crore start-up budget for the design and definition phase. A top officer associated with the programme indicates that the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA)-a consortium of agencies including drdo labs and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd-was hoping to complete a major chunk of the complex project for just under a billion dollars. drdo has its most complex and daunting aerospace challenge at hand, considering that the specific technologies that would make the IUSAV useful are areas that India has little or no expertise in. These include flying wing aerodynamics, RADAR absorbent paint and structural materials, remotely deployable smart weapons for surgical strikes, and most importantly, the intricate and unassailable communications and data-link architecture required to control an aircraft with a lethal payload from hundreds of miles away.
If the Indian aerospace establishment's recent track record with indigenous aircraft is any indication, IUSAV appears to be an audacious pipe dream. DRDO's own defence to such a claim is that unmanned combat drones comprise secret propriety technology that no country will ever share with India. And while that's true, France, Sweden and the UK have all started discussions with DRDO in an attempt to push their technologies into the Aura programme.
Indeed, IAF, which will be the primary operator of iusav, has conveyed in no uncertain terms that it wants a platform with as little foreign assistance as possible, and strictly no foreign help in any of the critical design areas and sub-systems. This stricture springs from the force's reasonable fear that foreign governments or contractors could withhold critical after-sales help during a conflict or war. In March, Defence Minister A.K. Antony informed Parliament that a modified version of India's troubled, unfinished Kaveri jet engine could power iusav. Several academic institutes, including IIT-Kanpur, have also been roped in for specific areas of critical research for use in IUSAV.
DRDO is working on other totally new areas that include serpentine jet intakes critical to stealth performance and cool exhausts to suppress the platform's infrared give-away, enclosed weapons bays and conformal sensors and antennae that will perform their crucial functions without compromising on the low observability.
If everything goes as planned, an off-limits section of ada in Bangalore, headed by senior aeronautical scientist Biju Uthup, hopes to begin testing a prototype of IUSAV by 2016. As things stand, IUSAV is only the latest in a healthy list of similar 'flying wing' stealth drones being developed across the world.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/indian-unmanned-strike-air-vehicle-india-first-unmanned-combat-drone/1/201950.html

 

[p2prada]

why no aerodynamics on drdo uavs????

Don't understand what you are trying to say. Even cars have aerodynamics in their designs.

 

[agentperry]

Don't understand what you are trying to say. Even cars have aerodynamics in their designs.

yes. cars have but drdo planes dont have. the way they make heavy and such a planes which from the first sight can be said to be not of PROPER aerodynamically airworthy

 

[p2prada]

yes. cars have but drdo planes dont have.

Haha! Nice one. :thumb:

 

[ersakthivel]

yes. cars have but drdo planes dont have. the way they make heavy and such a planes which from the first sight can be said to be not of PROPER aerodynamically airworthy

What is the aerodynamics of smaller UAVs of other countries?

Aerodynamics are used only for fast maneuvering fighter planes, not straight flying smaller surveillance UAvs that are used by armored corp commanders for simple surveillance ,No one will break their head to put it through years of wind tunnel modeling to fine tune their aerodynamics,

Fine tuning and giving rugged configuration to their surveillance payloads is the priority here, not giving it higher AOA and other combat specs, which need detailed aerodynamics design

If you look at combat related UCAVs like AURA ,you can see the aerodynamics.

 

[agentperry]

What is the aerodynamics of smaller UAVs of other countries?

Aerodynamics are used only for fast maneuvering fighter planes, not straight flying smaller surveillance UAvs that are used by armored corp commanders for simple surveillance ,No one will break their head to put it through years of wind tunnel modeling to fine tune their aerodynamics,

Fine tuning and giving rugged configuration to their surveillance payloads is the priority here, not giving it higher AOA and other combat specs, which need detailed aerodynamics design

If you look at combat related UCAVs like AURA ,you can see the aerodynamics.

cut copy paste can be performed by an animator also but making a plane out of crazy plane design is something different. im not into business of criticizing drdo but they are simply not producing anything good in aeronautical field.
aeronautics is not easy and to reduce drag even by few newtons might take months if not years and in todays world designers need to keep stealth and RCS in mind which makes things difficult.

problem with drdo is that they make thing very heavy and expensive- from arjun to tejas for navy everything is heavy and expensive and all this is because of lack of experience and the lost time of plane development in which western countries studied a lot and are now way ahead( this includes china too which studied the studies of western countries and are now ahead of india but not west)

 

[ersakthivel]

cut copy paste can be performed by an animator also but making a plane out of crazy plane design is something different. im not into business of criticizing drdo but they are simply not producing anything good in aeronautical field.
aeronautics is not easy and to reduce drag even by few newtons might take months if not years and in todays world designers need to keep stealth and RCS in mind which makes things difficult.

problem with drdo is that they make thing very heavy and expensive- from arjun to tejas for navy everything is heavy and expensive and all this is because of lack of experience and the lost time of plane development in which western countries studied a lot and are now way ahead( this includes china too which studied the studies of western countries and are now ahead of india but not west)

See you once posted people drink and make merry in DRDO labs as told by your friend, at that time I didnot know how to respond as it was a no proof allegation.

But aerodynamics is a branch of theory ,with today's software simulations it is not a huge problem for any advanced labs,
What is a time consuming problem is development of advanced materials for jet engines like single crystal tech, and nickel alloys that can withstand heat and stress,

Few bud heads here bluff drag,drag everytime tejas is mentioned doesnot mean aerodynamics is an out of world science, much complex systems like ABM is being done at DRDO,

Indian armed forces demand western style systems from DRDO in very small numbers, which results in high costs, Once systems mature and numbers increase costs will come down,

Chinese have developed and test flown and launched into productions various kinds of jet engine only in threads and forums around the world, Atleast india has K-9 ready and running, After claiming in production Ws engines for J-10 ,the chinese are begging russians for engines to JF-17 shows where they are in reality,

Once again no one will grind their heads for aerodynamic efficiencies on field level UAVs which fly a few kilometers and perfrom the duty of scout,

What is more important in these machines is rugged payload.

You and I nd many ranters masquerading as experts wont resign our job and take up work in DRDO labs to produce kickass stuff,Only the guys there are capable of it.

What we can do is not to hurl stupid allegations without even knowing the ARCDs of tech R&D and discourage fine young minds who are contemplating a career in DRDO. It is some thing you can avoid.

It has one of the lowest attrition rates for any tech organization in India, means some good morale is there and systems are comming out after long hibernations into production.

If you know what is the motive and level of shit knowledge some ranters have in criticizing DRDO products you can go to ARJUn vs T-90 thread and the closed ADA TEJAS-III thread here.

People who cannot fathom a few dimensions from a drawings are offering their services as DRDO baiters,

They are in reality worth less insomniac teens burning away branband bandwidth.

i just don't want to turn it into one long worthless subjective argument about what is wrong in DRDO,
Remember general Motors ,which was nick named ater as Government Motor,
remember Citibank , whose market capitalization shrunk lower than our own PSU State bank,
Remember 100 year old lehman brothers going bust,

And go to forensic accounting co veritas to see the level of transparency of some of india's much vauted private sector cos,

You will be introspect a lot about PSu criticism ,if you do that.

 

[Sam2012]

Any thing wrong with UAV's from Auroro integrated systems

are they not fit for Anti Naxal operation , yes one can agree they are not advanced as DRDO/HAL one but still

Urban View UAV

Altius MK1

Altius Mk2