The Indian Army in collaboration with the Drone Federation of India launched the ‘Him Drone-a-thon’ programme on 8 August. The Army said the initiative was in line with Make in India in defence manufacturing and the programme was aimed at catalysing and providing focused opportunities to the Indian drone ecosystem to develop path-breaking drone capabilities for meeting requirements of frontline troops.
The Indian Army’s support to the indigenous drone ecosystem is based on the principle that ‘good available indigenously’ is better than the ‘best available globally’. However, gradual enhancement in technology demanded by defence forces is likely to incentivise manufacture of better and more capable drone products.”
The indigenous industry has adequate expertise to develop world class products in this field. Latest procurements by the IA are indicative of its efforts to further encourage the indigenous drone ecosystem.
The push came after the a domestic company like ideaForge demonstrated its capability for military grade drones to the Indian security forces, including the Indian Army.
The ‘Him Drone-a-thon’ programme is a pan India sustained connect between all stake holders including industry, academia, software developers and drone product manufacturers. It will be conducted in stages with quantifiable parameters (like altitude, weight, range, endurance etc) being progressively enhanced based on demonstrated capabilities.
Indian Army has planned broad activities. interactions & ideation between users, development agencies, academia etc, seeking of industry responses.
The development agencies will visit various operational locations to understand the ground perspective & requirements, handholding of development agencies for internal development & on-ground trials and actual conduct & evaluation of drone products.
As a start point, various categories are defined for the development, including the Logistics/ Load carrying Drone in High Altitude Areas and Autonomous Surveillance/ Search & Rescue Drone. Beside, Government has also announced the design and develop drones micro and nano drones for fighting in built up areas.
Military Drones
In the early 1990s DRDO developed the Nishant UAV for reconnaissance and surveillance. But the project failed. India ended up importing a wide range of Israeli drones, including the medium-altitude long-endurance Heron I, the Searcher MK II, and the Harop loitering munition. In 2021, the Army procured a set of new surveillance drones which have been deployed along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh.
Currently, the Indian Drone ecosystem is at threshold where various domestic entities are in process of fully expanding their scope across industries, leveraging emerging technologies like AI, AR/ VR, IoT and 3D modelling.
The development of drones is largely based on software which integrates the sensory elements for data extraction and analysis. The ban on import of drones was based on experience in the civilian space sector. The time has come for the domestic industrial ecosystem to demonstrate capability to design and develop advanced unmanned and autonomous systems.
