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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.

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The Test

The demonstrator vehicle was tested at the Aeronautical Test Range located at Chitradurga in Karnataka on Friday. While being operated in a completely autonomous mode, it exhibited a perfect flight, according to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The take-off of the vehicle, the automatic navigation tracing the designated points — waypoint navigation and a touchdown — were all executed with the desired precision.

“This flight marks a major milestone in terms of proving critical technologies towards the development of future unmanned aircraft and is a significant step towards self-reliance in such strategic defence technologies,” the Ministry of Defence said.

The demonstrator has been developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a Bengaluru-based facility of the DRDO working in the fields of unmanned aerial vehicles, flight simulators, pilotless target aircraft, plight control systems and air weapons. Congratulating the DRDO, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh Rajnath Singh said that it is a major achievement towards autonomous aircraft and will pave the way for ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ in terms of critical military systems.

What is special about it?

DRDO officials highlighted the flying wing structure of the technology demonstrator, which refers to a tailless fixed-wing aircraft which houses its payload and fuel in its main wings and does not have a defined fuselage-like structure found in the conventional aircraft. The design, DRDO scientists say, has the potential to deliver high fuel efficiency and stealth, if executed with precision, as demonstrated by some of advanced bombers in the USA’s arsenal like B-2 bomber.

The officials added that the flying wing type of aircraft has a key operational advantage because it has low reflective cross sections resulting in low radar signature, making it a stealth machine. Because of the shape, the aircraft also has very low drag or air resistance. However, this unique design also comes with its issues related to stability and thus requires additional systems.

The airframe — the basic mechanical structure of the aircraft, the undercarriage — the landing gear used for take-off and landing and the entire flight control along with avionics systems used for the demonstrator have been developed indigenously. The vehicle is powered by a small turbofan engine which is an airbreathing type jet engine.

How will it help develop future combat drones?

DRDO scientists said that this technology demonstrator will further undergo tests for examining other technologies in the development of future combat drones. Tests would also be conducted on the scale and capability of the vehicle. Sources said that the Autonomous Flying Wing Technology Demonstrator is precursor to an autonomous stealth Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) being developed by the DRDO, primarily for the Indian Air Force. A deck launched version for the Indian Navy is also said to be in the pipeline. The UCAV will be capable of launching missiles and precision-guided munitions.

The DRDO has in the past developed various drones, like Nishant, Rustom, Tapas and Lakshya among others, which have different capabilities and operational roles. In July last year, the DRDO also unveiled its anti-drone technology aimed at neutralising enemy attacks. The system has the capability of counter attacks, including detection, soft kill — for jamming the communication links of drone) and hard kill — and laser based hard kill to destroy the drone to neutralise the adversary drones.

Several scenarios in the recent past, both in India and abroad, have highlighted the strategic importance of having stealth combat drones in the arsenal. While the Indian armed forces currently operate a mix of indigenously developed and imported drones, a fully homegrown stealth combat machine is the need of the hour, experts said.

While some reports suggest that the UCAV will be titled Ghatak (deadly) or Autonomous Unmanned Research Aircraft, the agency has not officially released the details.

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Nature of Warfare

Over the past few decades, there have been many prophecies about how drones will transform the nature of warfare and how “drone swarms” could overwhelm enemies in combat. While there is no doubt that unmanned warfare is evolving fast, the “era of the drone” is yet to arrive because countries that use them often do not deploy enough of them, or are afraid to lose them in battle. Despite widespread employment, drones did not stop the Taliban in Afghanistan.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, it put a renewed spotlight on the use of armed drones in conventional wars. The world saw how armed drones might work when both countries have them — and both have air defences that can shoot them down.

Turkish Bayraktar drones showed they can change the “nature of warfare” in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. But contemplating air war based on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict or the Ukraine-Russia war needs closer analysis. In the latter, the success of the Bayraktar was unclear. Even kamikaze drones did not turn the tide in Ukraine. The limits of drone warfare appeared to be on display.

Any air war, more so in the context of the subcontinent, would involve an entire array of aerial operations and combat air support campaigns. To counter drones, the capabilities of the enemy drone assets need evaluation before countering them through anti-drone measures and other means.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

The stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China has accelerated the acquisition of more drones. Impressed with the performance of the two leased Sea Guardian drones, the Navy, Army and the Air Force are considering procurement of combat drones.

Military Applications of UAVs.

Some of the important uses include:

• Information, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance (ISTAR).
• Unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV).
• Radar and Communication Relay.
• Mapping Military Logistics.
• Nuclear Cloud Surveillance.

Armed Drones. ADE has completed the development of the Rustom-2 TAPAS (Tactical Airborne Platform for Aerial Surveillance) MALE UAV (a MQ-1 category drone). Hindustan Aeronautics Limited will soon start the production of first five units of TAPAS drones. The optimally armed drone has already met all its revised qualitative requirements. It can fly at an altitude of 28,000 feet and has an endurance of 18 hours.

In total 76 units of this UAV will be ordered by forces. There will be 60 drones for Indian Army, 12 for the Indian Air Force and 4 for the Indian Navy.

Drone Technology

What information technology was in the 90s, drone technology is today. Technologies that the nation needs to invest in, are:

• Powertrain Technology – Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) Motor.
• Powertrain Technology – Fuel-Run Motor
• Powertrain Technology – Electronics
• Flight Controller
• Battery Technology
• Datalink Technology
• Making Bandwidth Available For Civilian Use

Some emerging technologies have the potential to enhancing effectiveness of drones, viz,

Artificial Intelligence. AI can help machines perceive and learn from Big Data to mimic and improve upon human cognitive functions like learning and problem solving.

Internet of Things (IoT). A network of connected devices, robots and instruments, embedded with sensors can communicate with other objects to         exchange data and information over the internet. Drones can act as first responders to an accident site and transmit real-time information to rescue agencies.

Indian Air Force

A Combat Air Teaming System (CATS) is a planned unmanned and manned combat aircraft air teaming system being developed by HAL, which is of interest to the IAF. An armed stealth drone will team up and fight alongside IAF fighters to hit high-value enemy targets. It is designed to carry out MUM-T Operations.

The Unmanned Wingman will be connected to a heavily upgraded IAF Jaguar fighter bomber; pilots onboard which will assign specific tasks to each of the unmanned drones which fly alongside the fighter. The drone will also operate with other platforms.

HAL is designing & developing AI powered, stealthy autonomous swarm drones known as ALFA-S. Sheer numbers of the swarm would overwhelm enemy defences such as surface-to-air missile units to ensure a high probability of mission success. The drones are meant to be launched from any Indian Air Force aircraft – fighter jets and transports.

DRDO is developing the Ghatak which is an UCAV for the IAF. The Aura UCAV will be a tactical stealth aircraft capable of delivering laser-guided strike weapons.

Indian Army

The army’s existing unmanned systems’ fleet comprises Heron medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAVs, and the smaller Searcher Mark II tactical drones.

The Army plans to buy high-tech unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to strengthen its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities and improve the effectiveness of its military operations.

Indian Navy

The Indian Navy currently operates Israeli-origin Heron and Searcher Mk-II UAVs, but neither is shipborne. It also has Sea Guardian drones on lease.

The Indian Navy announced its plans, in June 2022, to acquire 40 Naval Unmanned Aerial Systems (NUAS) for more than 100 meters long warships. The NUAS would be used for surveillance activities, including signals intelligence (SIGINT), target acquisition, surveillance, and maritime domain awareness surrounding a naval task forc as well as Search-and-Rescue (SAR), anti-piracy, and anti-terrorist operations.

The Indian Navy once partially funded a joint effort by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to convert the Chetak helicopter into an autonomous drone platform due to its need for the capabilities over time. The project, named naval rotary UAV (NRUAV), failed due to technological difficulties.

Research & Development

DRDO tested, in early-July 2022, the Autonomous Flying Wing Technology Demonstrator, which is a major step ahead of developing unmanned aerial combat vehicles (UCAV), primarily for the Indian Air Force. A deck launched version for the Indian Navy is also said to be in the pipeline. The UCAV will be capable of launching missiles and precision-guided munitions.

Countering Drones

Drones are hard to detect, do not have a significant visual, radar, infra-red or noise signature, and require minimal infrastructure to launch and control. Drones are best countered by effective jamming and laser systems.

DRDO’s D-4 anti-drone system can provide both “soft kill” (jamming of hostile drones) and “hard kill” (a laser-based destruction method) options to the military to tackle fast-emerging aerial threats. It has been used for VIP protection on National Days’ events.

Adani Defence & Aerospace has linked with DRDO and Israel’s Elbit Systems to begin deploying counter-UAS equipment in some of the country’s major airports.

UAV Industry

According to the Civil Aviation Minister, by 2026, the Indian drone industry will achieve a turnover of over Rs 15,000 crore. India is home to 270 startups in the drone technologies business. He has stated that the country will be a global leader in drones by 2030.

PLI Scheme. The government announced the Production-Linked Incentive scheme on 16 Sep 2021 which provides for funding 20 per cent of the “value addition” made by the company during the next three years. The value addition is calculated as the annual sales revenue from drones and drone components. 14 drone companies have already been selected as beneficiaries.

Joint Ventures. The first private UAV manufacturing complex has been set up at Adani Aerospace Park in Hyderabad to assemble unmanned aerial platforms including manufacturing of Hermes 900 Unmanned Aerial Platforms and marketing it to international customers.

Training

Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) signed a MoU, in July 2022, with a private drone service provider and training organisation, to set up a ‘Remote Pilot Training Centre’ (RPTC) to teach drone flying to defence/security forces personnel as well as citizens on a private partnership model near Gandhinagar. The RPTC will have DGCA certified drone trainers teaching the trainees regarding quadcopters with strict adherence to certification necessities.

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Although the Narendra Modi government on February 9 banned the import of drones, acquisition of unmanned aerial vehicles for defence and security purposes are exempt, but still require special and specific clearances. “As of now, the Predator deal is off,” said a top South Block official who asked not to be named.

Spearheaded by the Indian Navy, India was planning to acquire 30 Predator armed drones for use across services (10 each for the navy, air force and army) at the cost of at least $3 billion from US-based General Atomics. The Indian Navy already has taken two surveillance Predators on lease from the US company and uses them for conducting reconnaissance of India’s maritime and land borders with China and Pakistan.

The decision to put the acquisition on hold was taken as India already has some capability in armed drones; it is currently upgrading the Israeli Heron drones. The Predator platform with armed payload, as in missiles and laser-guided bombs, costs nearly $100 million apiece, but the platform has an endurance of nearly 27 hours.

The Indian Navy uses it for maritime domain awareness from Gulf of Aden to Sunda Straits in Indonesia.

While the Indian Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) is expected to unveil its medium altitude long endurance (MALE) drone latest by March, the country’s national security planners are looking at futuristic high altitude pseudo satellite (HAPS) technology for surveillance and targeting capability.

India has already demonstrated its capacity and capability for the manufacture of swarm drones, as was showcased in the Beating Retreat ceremony this year.

Besides DRDO, private Indian companies are also involved in the development of drones that are cheaper to operate compared to the Predator and pack similar lethality.

While the Indian Navy and Army have significant use for the drones for domain awareness, the Indian Air Force was sceptical of Predators due to congested air space, and the presence of surface to air missiles and radars in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. The Air Force is in favour of purchasing more fighter aircraft.

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Undoubtedly, countries are investing large sums for R&D and procurement of the unmanned combat aerial systems (UCAS). The US Air Force received the prototype of the vehicle-mounted C-UAS – High-Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS) in 2019. As per the Congressional Research Service paper of Jan 2021, the US Army as well as the US Navy, is working on the development of computer-enabled C-UAS products in collaboration with the Defense Digital Service. As per the Navy Technology news of 17 Mar 21, the US Navy is set to deploy the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, (ODIN) and the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) in 2021. It took the delivery of HELIOS from Lockheed Martin for testing in January 2021. Lockheed Martin is also developing a 60kW laser weapon system combining multiple fiber lasers to counter drone attacks. Further, ICARUS system, a cyber solution to combat small drone threats, has also been developed.

The race to the swift has nations vying for leveraging the 5G spectrum, since the space to render effective counters to the UAS will vacillate across the electro-magnetic spectrum, utilizing both passive and offensive measures. The range includes radar systems, microwave weapons, jammers, directed energy weapons, swarms riding artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. The cocktail is indeed a heady mix, but it also reflects the lethal operating milieu that militaries will need to contend with in not too distant a future.

Transformational Technologies

Presently, the established means to neutralize UAS is by resorting to physical downing means. Millimeter wave (mmW) radar along with data fusion methods are considered promising trends in the future. Due to the low footprint and low collateral damage, Hacking and Spoofing have emerged as a promising negation solutions, though a package to develop mature scalable, modular and affordable solution is a while away.

AI and ML in the domain of C-UAS assists the human operator in the loop to overcome complexities of sheer volume and speed of an impending attack. The process combines data from multiple sensors and fuses output to be used collaboratively with available data. The database to train the algorithms for ML is extrapolated from existing radars. The decision matrix loop of an incoming attack is in seconds for the operator to detect, mitigate and neutralize the UAS. The dilemma lies in the threat assessment, which is eased by AI that helps improve quality and speed of decision-making.

To optimize the process from Detection to Strike, use of ‘Quantum Computing’ (QC) is also being envisaged. Though the concept is the nascent stage, as the method to leverage these ‘surge technologies’ by factoring life cycles and operationalizing paradigms is still being worked out. QC is considered ideal for detection of patterns and conjuring digital signatures.

What needs to be understood is that AI and ML is good to optimize processes (by training on the datasets to track/recognize the drones) and is ideal for detection; however, for initiating the Strike, the operator in the loop is mandated. This is to guard against cyber threat of a malware being introduced into the system that would generate algorithms, turning the weapon rogue. The scientific community is working on the intrigue of trying to ‘Program Common Sense’, as it were. The approach being adopted by countries on the throes of developing Counter-UAS technologies using AI and ML are:-

• Focusing on the ability to democratize data and use it to generate intelligence.

• Enhance decision making by assisting human operator in the extremely short time critical window.

• Develop infrastructure at the ‘Edge’ to transform data collected into intelligence/ insight.

The ultimate aim of the C-UAS philosophy is the safe integration of the UAS into the airspace. Methods of detection and mitigation overlap and are often combined to provide a more effective and layered capability.

Policy Basket

Whilst, technological advances in AI, QC and Robotics are transformative, they also pose considerable threats and risks regards ethics, privacy, security and sovereignty, that countries developing these technologies require factoring.

The policies for export of weapons-grade technology followed by China and Russia are fairly accommodative when compared to the control regimes that the US has bound itself by. The Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) Policy, revised in 2018 aims to preserve U.S. national security, its economic security, strengthen strategic U.S. allies, and perpetuate the U.S. military’s technological edge in line with its other international trade policies. The International Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to which Washington voluntarily adheres, provides a framework of understanding amongst states aimed at limiting the proliferation of missile technology with payload and range of the rockets and UAVs of at least 500 kgs and 300 kms, respectively.

Turkey joined the MTCR in 1997 but China does not participate in the initiative. US intends to institute reforms to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) that would provide a level playing field and allow it to compete with countries that diluted arms export restrictions, especially with respect to drone exports. The debate in the US rages between the aspects of diluted control for equivalence in the economic security and national security and the jury is still out with the Biden administration considering its pros and cons.

India promulgated the rules for UAS titled, “Unmanned Aerial Systems Rules-2021” on 12 Mar 2021. The rules list out the category of UAS and modalities for permits and licence applications and penalties for non-compliance. The civil aviation ministry has also promulgated the UAS National Traffic Management Policy spelling out the architecture, concept of operations and deployment plan for enabling UAS Traffic Management (UTM) ecosystem in India.

Doctrinal Precepts

India and the US have signed four significant foundational agreements reinforcing military cooperation. Progress made by the US in the UCAS domain will assist India leverage the development at some stage. According to Janes, India is the world’s third largest armed force and third largest defence spender after US and China. In the midst of a large military modernization drive, with the indigenous defence industrial bases having been put into motion with a corridor each in the Indian states of UP and Tamil Nadu, the Defence Acquisition Procedure-2020 classifies Capital Procurement under a new category – “Buy (Global – Manufacture in India)” – with minimum 50 per cent indigenous content. The UCAS from any of the Indian allies may be routed through this category.

The air and ground radar package must include low power, low signature KU-band radars, networked by AI compute, made resilient through redundancy, looking at all angles, capable of simultaneous detection and tracking multiple threats (essentially a guard against swarms). The inclusion of directional radio frequency inhibitor in the process would mitigate the UAS by instituting loss of control thereby denying, deterring or disrupting an impending threat. If the electronic counter-attack is insufficient, the kinetic hard-kill option still exists due to the layered approach across the full kill-chain.

Own vulnerabilities must be assessed, factoring AI and ML. A 360-degree cardinal situational awareness, layered with sophisticated AI facilitated techniques to deduce swarm objectives and threat mitigation needs to be propagated. International cyber attacks either through nations or through organizations, leveraging the power of AI can have catastrophic impact on society. Juxtapose this with lethal autonomous weapons and the problems get accentuated.

UCAS is not a silver bullet but a natural corollary to the evolution of UAS continuum. Nagorono-Karabakh was the real conflict experience for the U-CAV. At different levels of operation, the integration levels preferred are:

• At the technical level, there is a requirement of multi-domain solutions.

• At the tactical level, there is greater requirement of integration to develop a common operational picture to avoid fratricide.

• At the operational level, there is requirement of a seamless integration of the UCAS with existing capabilities.

• At the Strategic level, there is a requirement of whole of the government approach. The entire gamut of actions from Prevention (that stresses on the EW signals to Intelligence) to Situational Awareness (that legislates detection, tracking, classification and identification) to Response (by defeating, deterring, destruction or capturing) and to the post event analytics (or PSDA); the entire flow chart of activities is constructed and these precepts incorporated in the CUAS operational strategy.

The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Bipin Rawat, during a webinar on ‘Shaping the Armed Forces to meet likely current and future challenges’ at the Vivekananda International Foundation, New Delhi, on 7 April, spelt out the emerging paradigm to be adopted by India and he stated, “Future battles requires us to confront the growing capabilities of our adversaries, i.e., the hybrid imprint, collusive support and threat posed from emerging technologies. Needless to say, we cannot fight the next war premised on the experiences and structures of the past wars. The keystone to the way forward is by joint-ness, integration and modernization by imbibing technology in line with the changing security environment and utmost optimization of resources generating greater combat effectiveness”.

Out of the world glare, India has donned the ‘Green (creativity) Hat’ from De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats to try new ideas and perspectives – something vital for assuming leadership in the global context. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), as part of it next generation Combat Air Teaming System (CATS) has unveiled the Air Launched Flexible Asset (ALFA-S) swarming drone system to penetrate contested airspace. Remember, a swarm itself maybe used as an effective C-UAS against a swarm attack. The approach is collaborative with the USAF’s ‘Air Force Research Labs’ joining the bandwagon with India.

A layered approach with integration of different systems is ideally suited for the Indian approach. Since C-UAS needs to be factored into the air defence philosophy at the Service level, the announcement of an Air Defence Command, as part of the overall theaterization, synergizing all resources under direction of a single theater commander augurs well for the concept. The system must be capable of detecting – tracking -identifying – deterring and ultimately defeating an incoming attack. The strategy must be based on an ‘autonomous’ model with fused systems, capable of more than one vector response, used proactively. It is a concept that needs incorporation sooner than later.     (Concluded)

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That the world is riding into a ‘Geo-political flux’ is hardly an intelligent statement to be making these days. Power-play manoeuvres are being initiated at multilateral levels – between nation states and across domains; from military to economic, diplomatic, space and cyber amongst others, to either establish supremacy or have the target nation accede with threat of punitive action. Moves to leverage and posture own national assets to safeguard interests either by forging strategic alliances or through regional constructs are the order of the day. Technology is playing greater role in tipping the balance than was earlier envisaged. With this great power competition has emerged the rise of both high and low-end threats that call for a whole of the nation approach to deal with.

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are nobody’s exclusive preserve. Today, Gen-Z, through the sheer power of their imagination and result-oriented research has galvanized the concept of flying. Technology has further acerbated the utility and with a few alterations to the aerodynamic and software parameters can mutate the airframe to a lethal military grade weapon. By description, UAS includes both Drones and UAVs and the operators controlling them. Just a couple of months back, the Indian Army exhibited the offensive capability of a Swarm of 75 Autonomous Drones with distributed intelligence and Edge computing, destroying a variety of simulated targets including kamikaze attack capabilities during the Army Day parade in New Delhi in January 2021. The capability also exhibited enhancing and reducing the size of the swarms as per operational requirements.

India, due to its geographic location has been touted as a land of opportunities, threats and paradoxes. The Indian vision is intrinsically linked to its regional aspirations and safeguarding its own national security interests. The implications are instructive and include maintenance of territorial integrity both from external and internal threats, security of the vital Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). It’s focus and importance was highlighted, on 8 April, in some ways when USS John Paul of the US Seventh Fleet forayed 130 nautical miles west of the Lakshadweep Islands, inside India’s EEZ, without requesting India’s prior consent, “consistent with international law” amidst much consternation from the Indian Security establishment.

Former US Secretary of Defence, Mark Esper, in a statement at the Air Space and Cyber conference, on 18 Sptember 2019, said, “the conveniences of today’s battlefield will not be the realities of the future.” The underlying message that lay there in pointed, amongst others, to the ever-evolving threats from UAS. Just when the world was awe-struck by the maturation of the UAS, another voyage beyond the final frontiers was being undertaken in the realms of counter-UAS.

Developmental Helix

Development of any ‘Counter-Technology’ goes through an iterative spectrum process from ‘Inactivity’ (solution thrust upon, often with disastrous consequences), ‘Reactivity’ to ‘Pre-activity’ and ‘Pro-activity’ (resultant solution best suited to meet developing threats). Employment of UAVs is perceived in multiple roles. With varied armed configurations, armed drones or Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UVACs) are capturing the fancy of nations. Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 UCAVs used in 2020 in the Nagorno-Karabakh war, created history in the disputed region by use of UAVs. War planners across the world have been forced to take a serious note of these weapons, their characteristics and wartime outcomes. The punch that the concept packs for surprise and damage, justifies its utility for scaling and is now an important resource for force planning and packaging.

On 14 September, drones were used to attack the Saudi state-owned Aramco oil facilities leading to a global surge in the crude oil price around the world.

On 1 January 2020, Gen Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian commander, was killed by a US drone strike at Baghdad airport. Some of the other headlines that captured the imagination of the world read – “Trump’s plane was nearly hit by a small drone”, “Ex CIA official warns of Iran, ISIS drones armed with chemical weapons”, “Warning over terrorist attacks using drones given by EU Security Chief”, “Gatwick drone disruption cost over £50 mn” and so on.

Smaller UAS, at times operating as swarms, are becoming the popular weapon of choice. Evolutionary developments in its design and utility to target important communication nerves without collateral damage, something borne in contact warfare, reflects its scalability. When relevant associated sciences like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning (DL) algorithms that offer disruptive outcomes are juxtaposed into the concept, the results become reverberant. Today, the UAS propel the users to a whole new level of Information, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) and strike capabilities. Professional armies need to be alive to this capability, be agile and pivot its advantages.

Though handled at tactical levels, the resource is strategic in its application. Grouping of UAVs in force planning is a necessity for all war entities. Based on weight, they have been categorised into Nano, Micro, Mini, Small and Large UAVs. Also, based on their operational range they are either High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) or Medium Range Long Endurance (MALE) UAVs. Medium range ones are Tactical UAVs and the ones with smaller range are in the Mini and Nano categories.

An in-depth understanding of the characteristics, maturation level and manifestation of the drone architecture, consisting of the unmanned aircraft itself, the ground control station (GCS) and the communication data link (CDL) is necessary to design an effective C-UAS. The C-UAS for desired effectiveness must proliferate domains, technologies, operating frequencies, articulation, manifestation and orchestration and transcend interoperability and synchronization across military systems and organizations. Notably, all UAVs are drones, however, not all drones are UAVs. ‘Counter Drones’ is a science that is fast being developed as the anti-thesis to the still evolving concept of UAS.

Counter-UAS

A C-UAS system can be defined as a mechanism capable of lawfully and safely disabling, disrupting, or seizing control of the UAS. The rapid rise of commercial and military grade technologies including autonomous operations combined with concepts such as ‘Swarming’ and ‘Multi-Modal Operations’ (MMO) requires the development of effective and advanced C-UAS systems. Today, UAS are available to state and non-state actors and individuals. These systems are a low-cost, yet effective means of conducting ISR missions. The operating philosophy of C-UAS includes both detection and mitigation. To placate the palate of the ‘Techno-Doctrinaire’, both techniques are explained in some detail.

Detection Methods

Algorithms fuse data from multiple sources to produce accurate and efficient data for credible detection. Detection is undertaken through the following means:

• Electro-optical, infra red or acoustic to detect target by visual, heat or sound signatures, respectively.

• By use of radar systems. However, accuracy of the system on UAS with smaller surface area is suspect.

• By using radio frequency sensors to identify the wireless signals for control of UAS.

Acoustic Detection. Machine Learning (ML) techniques have been leveraged to classify UAS from the audio data. The signal fingerprinting of the UAS engine is constructed and analyzed. Using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), detection is transformed to a binary classification for precision in identification. The technology is yet to achieve maturation, as the nature of acoustic approaches is a limiting factor, which at some stage will be addressed by ML.

Passive RF Detection. All UAS employ Radio Frequencies (RF) data link to its Command & Control (C2). The detection of UAS is derived from the spectral patterns of transmission using Software Defined Radio (SDR) receivers. Spectrum patterns are dependent on telemetry protocols that introduce errors in detection. True fix on the UAS is offered by unique signature study and vibration along with patterns of the transmitted wireless signals.

Vision based UAS Detection. Vision based detection technologies focus on Image Processing (IP). Videos and cameras are used in capturing rogue UAS images. Using computational methods, the ground station figures the appearance of UAS from the videos and pictures. The process introduces inherent challenges of distinguishing background signals from foliage and flying birds Image segmentation methods us Neural Networks (NN) to identify the UAS. A twin approach leverages the Thermal Camera to detect the UAS and NN to identify the UAS. An algorithm operating on an embedded system identifies the UAS in movement and the datasets of the pictures and videos train the algorithms to be discerning the UAS from the background. Evolution of Deep Neural Networks (DNN) in processing of image facilitates UAS detection and hold tremendous potential.

Radar based UAS Detection. Radars like Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW), amongst all the sensors have the advantage of being time and weather agnostic. As per its principle of operation, they measure the range and velocity to provide detection.

Mitigation Methods

Mitigation technologies include the physical capture or jamming of the UAS. Jamming either through the RF Command and Control (C2) or the Global Positioning System C2 Jamming or Spoofing. UAS can also be neutralized or destroyed using guns, nets, by use of Eagles, Directed Energy or through traditional Air Defense systems. The criterion for use is ‘low cost per engagement’ and ‘least collateral damage’.

Physical Capture. In the physical capture of the UAS, soldiers fire projectiles through guns, which has nets stored in the warhead to capture a flying UAS. Directional Electromagnetic Pulse is also used to disable the control system.The method primarily focuses on disabling the mobility of Drone and control system and has the advantages of easy manipulation, lightweight and quick assembling. Itis efficient and low cost, but not pilot friendly.

Jamming. Another approach at mitigation is to jam the system or sensors rendering the UAS inoperable by the flight controller. This is the most common method at neutralizing an incoming attack. The defenders leverage signal to noise to interfere in the operation of UAS for neutralization.

Exploit Vulnerabilities. This deals with prioritizing the controls by either exploiting the vulnerabilities in the system by either use of GPS or sensor technology to alter existing protocols to control the drone and land it safely for subsequent analysis.     (contd in May 2021)

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