India, US to collaborate on drone swarms & other military hi-techs
The military is placing its first orders for swarm drones, but the goal is to increase R&D for indigenous prowess in these game-changing machines.
Swarms are groups of armed drones that fly together in perfect symmetry in search of targets. If one of the drones succeeds, the flock as a whole takes over, seamlessly self-healing to complete the objective. They can be used to overwhelm enemy air defences, assault vehicles, planes, and troops with kamikaze missions.
When compared to manned planes and helicopters, as well as cruise missiles and conventional bombs, drone swarms are low-cost and may be mass-produced. This is why militaries around the world require a drone swarm. The Israeli army is thought to have pioneered the usage of swarm technology.
Drones had the appearance of being something out of science fiction for a long time. The quadcopters raced around the spherical, their digital eyes scanning the bottom, their little rotors whirling. The drones found their target—a single T-55 battle tank—after a 15-minute flight. Their cameras compared the image to a database of onboard targets. After that, the drones dropped their payload on the tank.
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Drone swarms : India
Officers from the Indian Military’s Simulator Improvement Division (SDD) assessed drones fielded by a handful of personal distributors at a military cantonment in Secunderabad in August for the demonstration. If the situation had been a stay-fight, the created costs (explosives designed to transmit all of their blast pressure downwards) would have been dropped by the drones.
Based on these assessments, the military placed two fast-track procurement orders for Rs 100 crore each with two private companies last month. NewSpace Applied Sciences, based in Bengaluru, has been tasked with developing a weaponized swarm of fifty drones with a range of 25 kilometres. Raphe mPhibr, based in New Delhi, will demonstrate a swarm of 50 cargo drones capable of transporting 4 kg payloads over a distance of 25 kilometres. These are the main drone swarm purchases made by the Indian military.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is reviving a 2018 competition to find developers who can create a drone swarm that can fly 100 kilometres (50 kilometres up and 50 kilometres below), autonomously identify targets, attack them, and return to the base.
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Azerbaijani forces employed waves of weaponized Turkish drones to shatter Armenian radars, air-defence missile installations, vehicles, and fortifications during the six-week fight over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave that ended last November. The conflict demonstrated that the days of stand-alone heavy models, such as tanks, artillery, and missile systems, may be numbered as well. Terrorists from the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) deployed two drones to attack an IAF airbase in Jammu. One of the drones dropped a military-grade shaped cost on the roof of a building on the base, removing an eight-inch concrete slab.
In comparison to the multibillion-dollar drone imports that the armed forces are asking for, swarm drone orders on Indian start-ups are small. For Rs 30,000 crore, the three businesses want to buy 30 Predator-B, Sea Guardian, and Sky Guardian drones from US company Common Atomics. These drones, which have been refined over the course of more than two decades of US drone warfare investments, will give the military a substantial boost in functionality (every service will get 10 drones). However, because they are being acquired off the shelf with no knowledge transfer, the sale will have no impact on the improvement of indigenous products. The Predator-B drone’s price tag of Rs 1,200 crore is far more than that of the Predator.
However, because they are being acquired off the shelf with no knowledge transfer, the sale will have no impact on the improvement of indigenous products. The Predator-B drone’s price tag of Rs 1,200 crore is far more than all other drone orders placed with Indian start-ups.
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Drone superpowers like Turkey and Israel have demonstrated that developing weaponized drones requires years of laborious R&D. To determine aerodynamics, combine sensors, and perfect the algorithms and communication protocols, months of hard work are required.
If India’s drone development is moving at a snail’s pace, it could be owing to the ministry of defence’s (MoD) organisational structure. It is more inclined toward acquisition than nurturing cutting-edge technology or assisting start-ups. With programmes like Improvements for Defence Excellence (iDEX), small advances in the direction of selling start-ups have yet to see the creation of cutting-edge applied sciences.
This is why the IAF’s swarm drone competition, which began in 2018, was hailed as a game-changer.
The IAF, which wants to be able to strike in a range of 50-200 kilometres, is holding a relaunched competition later this year. The day of the swarm drone is approaching, with swarms flying 50 kilometres and the system having to locate and attack targets without a human in the loop. Perhaps a new paradigm of user-driven defence technology will emerge as a result of it.
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