6-7 September 2018
Indian Military Review and Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS) organised “UAV India 2018 Civil and Military” seminar & exhibition on 6-7 September 2018 at the Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi. The first day was focused on military uses and the second on civil uses.
Military Uses
Inaugural Session
In his welcome address, Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia, Director CENJOWS explained that the aim was to provide the stake holders, participants and delegates a platform to deliberate on this emerging area. He cautioned that while UAVs offer opportunities, they pose challenges as well for the armed forces. He stressed that self reliance and indigenous capabilities were important. Use of UAV’s holds promises in cutting costs, when confronted with depleting budgets.
Special Talk
Dr (Mrs) Tessy Thomas, Director General Aeronautical Systems, DRDO, gave an exhaustive presentation titled, “Military UAV’s: Indian Scenario”. She stressed on the need and possible future applications of UAV, which are seen suitable for dull, dirty and dangerous tasks, where employment of manned platforms would be risky.
She said that across the world, UAVs were experiencing a growth trajectory as was seen in aviation history of the manned aircraft. She flagged the advantages of stratospheric operations with UAVs, which provide uninterrupted Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR) compared to satellites, which are constrained by the revisit frequency of their orbit.
The future promises fully autonomous systems, which can provide 360* awareness. Using UAV with appropriate sensors and weaponization match, the shooter to sensor time lag will significantly reduce.
After being warned by fused data emanating from the sensors, UAV’s would carry out independent operations involving autonomous target detection, identification and destruction all through autonomous decision – making.
She also spoke briefly on the Research & development (R&D) effort on UAVs by DRDO.
Industry Perspective
Col KV Kuber, Director (Defence & Aerospace) Ernst & Young gave the industry perspective. He said that, there was a huge market potential for UAVs. It has increased from $1.5 bn in 1990 to well over $5 bn today. India is one of the fastest growing markets for the unmanned vehicles and one of the top importers of the UAVs for the military purposes. India is slated to grow even faster now with the issue of the UAV policy by Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). He spelt out the emerging demand for UAVs in various categories _ nano/ mico to medium and large UAVs. The current inventory comprises of mostly Israeli made UAVs – Herons, Searchers and Harops. Among Indian UAVs are Lakshya and Nishant.
Keynote Address
Lt Gen PK Srivastava, Director General Artillery gave the Keynote Address highlighting the vast potential for their employment, costing based on their capabilities, large gap in the requirements and the capacity of the industry to meet them.
Due to the inevitable compulsions of the future, there was a need for a centralized body to co-ordinate growth on the civil side while the Services should look at their own requirements holistically, he said. UAV’s with the Services should have the capability to take multiple payloads so as to cut costs without compromising on their capabilities. This was possible only if pay loads were miniaturized.
He said that we were good in developing the ground support equipment. We should consider having maintenance hubs and keep costs low. If we did not have adequate provision for the maintenance, it could be costly and lead to serviceability problems.
Use of drones in swarms was a promising field, which called for serious study for its employment both from defensive as well as from the offensive perspective, Gen Srivastava said. He exhorted the academia to include the subject of UAVs in M.Tech studies.
EY-IMR UAV Report
A market report on the UAV scenario in India prepared by Ernst & Young was released by the chief guest.
Emerging Technologies and Roles of UAVs
This session was chaired by Maj Gen Sandeep Apte, Addl DG Artillery
Col NC Gupta, Director Bharat Drone Systems, explained his company’s involvement in indigenous manufacture of drones under the Make in India programme with its own R&D and consultancy for others. The company follows a comprehensive approach and has different types of drones catering to requirements of the Army from battalion to brigade to corps level. They offer drones in all segments from catapult-launched drones available off-the-shelf to strategic, solar and tactical drones. He suggested that the armed forces should establish their own incubators for R&D and develop their own systems. He also recommended developing drone tactics at the Army War College to optimise utilization of drone technologies.
Robert Gilman, Senior Director, International Programs, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, spoke on drones offered by his company, particularly the most discussed MQ-9B Sky Guardian, which is being considered for purchase by India. General Atomics has produced a total of 23 variants of drones in last 26 years of its existence.
Sqn Ldr VS Srinivasan Dy General Manager, Aerosystems, Tata Advanced Systems, in his talk titled “UAV’s Commercial Applications in India”focused on indigenous capability and self reliance, which should be the corner stone of the armed forces’ procurement. The company is already selected to supply Mini-UAVs for the Army. These mini-UAVs have 24 hr mission capability, autonomous controls and target tracking, gyro stabilized payloads, low noise, ruggedized and low visibility. He discussed the attributes of Aquilon Mini-UAV, which is hand-launched and carries out belly-landing. Its weight is 4kg and can be easily carried by an infantry soldier. The Sky-1 on the other hand, was lesser than 10 kg in weight, a modular design and could carry multiple payloads.
Urmi Bhattacharjee, Product Sales Consultant, Bentley Systems India, spoke on “Reality Modelling for Better Tomorrow and Digital Cities”. She gave a bird’s eye-view of 3D modeling, an emerging technology in which the drones/ remotely piloted aircrafts (RPA) could provide solutions at much lower costs than the traditional methods. She gave examples in the arena of maintenance inspection of bridges, which would be difficult to assess under the piers but could easily be accomplished by a drone.
UAVs Capabilities and Requirements
Brig Yogesh Chaudhary, Brig (LRVs, RPAs and Ops), Artillery Directorate, chaired this session. He briefly explained the broad contours of threat scenarios and the varied terrain of operations ranging from plains to mountainous, jungle and dessert. He covered the UAV platforms needed by the Artillery formation, which would help to find the threat, fix it and then direct fire. The artillery requires them for establishing and shortening the sensor to shooter link. He particularly talked about the need of high altitude long endurance (HALE) and medium altitude UAVs, which could be used for ISR and direct support of fire. The requirement for the infantry soldier was discussed later by his panelists.
Air Cmde Surat Singh, Principal Director Offensive Operations, Air HQ, gave a presentation titled “UAV’s and the Indian Air Force”. He explained the possible roles in which RPA’s could be used in the armed forces. He explained the emerging role of armed UAVs in an uncontested environment and the chances of success due to their small size and unmanned advantages. RPAs were vulnerable to air defences in a contested environment, hence the need for longer loiter time, longer range, high speed, automatic take off and landing, stealth design, secure communications and ability to carry multiple pay loads.
Col Prashant Pandey, Colonel Infantry-5, Infantry Directorate, listed out the existing challenges facing infantry formations. He stressed the important of enemy intelligence in the vicinity of the border. While the ground-based sensors suffered from range limitations, their fixed locations made them susceptible to destruction by enemy action. They also suffered from the lack of flexibility in tracking and relocating. There are no dedicated aerial asset at the infantry battalion level. Provision of mini-UAVs could make a difference for target detection, recognition, identification and acquisition for engagement by a suitable weapon system. Further, these assets are useful in assessing the post strike damage assessment as well as protection of own force by detecting the impending enemy action. He spelt out the spectrum of utility – conventional, sub-conventional, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance & disaster relief (HADR) and aid to the civil authority.
Col Pandey gave out specifications of mini-UAVs – man portable with a range not less than 10 km and ceiling altitude of 1000 metres, all terrain and day & night operations capability. The payloads needed to provide high resolution both during day and night with video facility.
Capt (IN) Dushyant Purohit, Director Naval Air Staff, Naval HQ, gave a presentation on “Indian Navy’s Experiences with UAVs”. He explained that to cover vast coastline and sea lanes, the Navy needed RPAs with the ability to operate for long durations at high altitudes. These RPAs are based at Porbander, Kochi and Ramnad. He explained the control of RPAs from the shore and their handing over to the ships so as to increase their control communication range. Indian Navy requires high and medium-altitude endurance RPAs and shipborne RPAs to be used for maritime surveillance, fleet control and giving assistance to the civil agencies. The RPAs should have the ability to carry varied payloads – electro-optical camera, maritime patrol radar, COMINT suite and ESM. The RPA’s offered by the industry for the Indian Navy should have advanced processing capability, secure data link communication, tactical collision avoidance system, automatic identification system and ASW detection ability. He also explained the modalities of their operation in the controlled air space in conjunction with the Navy and AAI formulated guidelines.
Research & Development and Counter-UAV Technologies
This session was chaired by Maj Gen GD Bakshi, Editor IMR and former GOC ‘R’ Counter-Insurgency Force. He expounded the increasing emphasis on the use of the UAVs by Israel and the United states, where they are slated to replace the 50% strength of the manned aircrafts.
Siddhesh Naik, Systems Engineer, ISR Payloads and Applications, NewSpace Research & Technologies, spoke on “Near Space Persistent UAV’s for India’s Military Needs”. He explained the benefits of ISR from a HALE drone operating in the stratosphere. In comparison to satellites, HALE drones, eg, operating at 65000 ft altitude could provide uninterrupted ISR up to 240 hrs. These could be beneficially employed for border surveillance, maritime surveillance, during actual operations to monitor the TBA or the enemy area of interest. Thus, it has cost operational advantages over satellite-based ISR. These can be used to detect aircrafts, ships and even missile launches from their boost phase itself if under cover.
Sashikanth C C, Scientist G, Principal Director (Payloads) Rustom-2 & Head AIEL, Aeronautical Development Establishment, DRDO, spoke on the “Research & Development of UAVs at ADE”. He traced the history of drone development in DRDO, including ULKA air-launched target for the surface-to-air missiles (SAM), Kapothaka mini RPV demonstrator, Lakshya pilotless target aircraft capable of towing two targets at a time, Nishant used for night reconnaissance, wheeled Panchi, Rustom-1 and Rustom -2 unarmed combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) under development. Rustom-1 has ISR capability using 75kg electro-optical payload and a UAV simulator. Rustom-2 will carry out conventional take-off and landing and would have a range of 250 km with a service ceiling of 32,000 ft.
Valedictory Address
Lt Gen SS Mishra, Director General Infantry gave the Valedictory Address on the first day. He asserted that RPAs were force enablers, both in conventional and un-conventional operations. He saw significant impact of RPAs in conventional operations where they are planned particularly in the ISR roles. Budgets, however, would always remain a constraint, he cautioned. He also spoke about security aspects of drones obtained off-the-shelf which may have embedded systems to pass on data to servers located beyond our borders.
Civil Uses
Welcome Address
Arvind K Arora, Director General, DIPM Council (India) welcomed the delegates on the second day, highlighting the immense scope of Internet of Things (IOT) and artificial intelligence (AI) in drones, the huge market potential, shortage of trained drone pilots and the need to establish training centers to meet the future demand. Drone technology was disruptive and would change the markets. We must therefore, decide whether we would like to become technology resident, or remain alien to the technology, he said.
Special Address
Prof. Ajoy Kanti Ghosh Professor (HAG), Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur, welcomed the regulations for operation of UAVs in India. He lamented that we are woefully short of infrastructure. He laid great emphasis on genuine research. He questioned start-ups, claiming to be developing drones, but were in fact merely integrating the assemblies.
There were innumerable uses of the drones in civil, which remain limited by our imagination. Air Taxi, air ambulance, emergency rescue system, remote medical delivery system, emergency medical transport system are some areas where drones could be used.
Counter UAV Technologies
Maj Gen Ravi Arora, Chief Editor Indian Military Review, presented international trends in counter-drone technologies, which varied from kinetic to soft kills.
Innovative Employment of UAVs
Lt Gen Sanjay Kulkarni, former Director General Infantry chaired the session. He apprised the audience of the new drone policy issued by DGCA which laid down the ground rules for use of drones in India. It also specifies some restrictions which must be obeyed by the drone flyers besides the requisite qualification for the drone and the drone pilots. The Chinese, Israelis and US have taken lead in the drone market. Apart from their civil use, in the market and other areas, the drone offer great possibilities for their use in the natural disasters.
Col Mandeep Tiwari spoke on “Drone Mapping for Smart Military Stations.” He informed the delegates that there were 300 cantonments/military stations in India. It was not possible to map more than two to three stations in year. Use of other means like satellites, photographs, etc, were very expensive options. Drones on the other hand offer a very useful tool to carry out 3D mapping at a quicker pace and at a reasonable cost.
Dheeraj Kumar, DIG (Ops), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) HQ spoke on “CRPF Experience in Use of UAVs in Low Intensity Conflict”. Drones were being used in CRPF for surveillance, terrain analysis, monitoring the operations and adversary’s intelligence. He admitted that while UAVs faced limitations due to thick jungle foliage, yet they were very useful when equipped with IR detection payloads. He showed two videos of Maoist-affected areas, where insurgents were detected by drones. He brought out other limitations like line of sight affecting their control and long down time in the field. CRPF essentially required mini, micro and nano UAVs. Of late, the establishment has also sought Heron drone, which was being used by the Services for ISR functions.
Prithul Kumar, Director, Ministry of Mines, Govt of India, spoke on “Use of Drones by the Ministry of Mines”. He explained the methodology of mining activities, which involved survey and exploitation, mine planning and development, production and monitoring and, finally, mine closure and rehabilitation. According to him, the drones could be used in all phases of mining operations. Ministry of Mines has advised all mining units to use drones.
Madup Tiwari, Joint Commissioner, Delhi Police spoke on “Use of UAVs in Maintenance of Law & Order”. He talked of using drones for crowd monitoring, recording of proceedings, surveillance of rogue elements and identification of pressure points, aid in planning search & rescue, getting visuals of inaccessible spots, delivery of supplies to the victims, traffic monitoring, etc. He narrated some live cases in which drones were used to detect the commission of crimes even before they occurred.
Potential Civil Uses of UAV’s and their Risks
This session was chaired by Maj Gen AK Channan, Addl DG Perspective Planning and Head of Army Design Bureau.
Akhilesh Srivastava, Chief General Manager (Highway Operations & IT), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) spoke on “Use of Drones in Highways”. He explained how drones ensured effective monitoring of national highway projects. NHAI has empanelled agencies using drones for carrying out aerial photography of their projects. The authority uses mini/ micro drones below 200 ft during day time, which does not require clearances. The drones were being used for planning, alignment fixing, estimating and subsequent bidding purposes, Project Monitoring, operation and maintenance of highways, bridge maintenance and incident management.
Valedictory Address
Lt Gen BS Pawar, former DG of Army Aviation, gave the Valedictory Address. He said the regulations for drones had been issued conforming more to the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) of the US rather than to our local realities. There were several questions which needed to be addressed. For example, how would you issue clearance for flying drones from the remote areas? Where was the organization to implement the regulations? Who will certify the flying fitness of drones? The size and complexity of the task was not appreciated.
There was a huge demand for drones in India. Even when drones were banned, drones worth more than Rs. 40 crores were imported. This demand will rise exponentially now. There were also issues of insurance, privacy, flight safety, etc. He also spoke of unbridled start-ups whose genuineness remained suspect. Demand of the Indian armed forces was nearly 22% of the world military market for drones. This would give rise to the issue of air space management in India. Ministry of Civil aviation must come out with version-2 of the regulations after considering the roadblocks and suggestions.
Recommendations
The requirements of three Services indicate that presently all three wings require drones to meet their ISR needs. Even the current inventory of drones held is of same genre. There remains a possibility of generating synergy and lowering costs in the face of depleting budgets and competing demands of the three Services.
The following measures are suggested:-
• Commonality of operational tasks of the three Service must be kept in mind as far as possible, to acquire similar drone assets.
• Joint pilot training centre should be planned for drones of the three Services.
• Integrate the logistics of the three Services with a common supply chain of spares support.
• Establish common maintenance hubs to cut costs and duplication and enhance effectiveness. The supplier could be asked to set up an MRO for this task.
• wherever, ISR data on targets of opportunity is of interest to the other Service, same should be shared between the Services.
• During peacetime the sourced data could be shared through HQ Integrated Defence Staff (IDS). During operations, channel of communication can be planned to share the same expeditiously horizontally with the sister Service.
• Joint sessions may be planned periodically to share learning and enhancing operational experiences for common learning.
• The Services should jointly plan incubators to give impetus to R&D catering to their specific needs.
• Establish Tactics Development Centre (TDC) for development of tactics for employing UAVs in ISR and UCAV roles. This will help in optimum development of drone technologies.
• All parameters and performances being equal, preference should be given to India-made drones against foreign makes for autonomy and security reasons.
