• The Advancement of Technology has led to the application of Science in various fields including weapon’s Technology.
• This means mechanics playing more crucial rule then human Intervention and one such example is unnamed Aerial Vehicles’ or VAVs.
• After the arriving of UAV’s, the battlefield’s has never been the same, while attacker’s are exploiting the combat capabilities of this new weapon, the defender’s are busy harnessing new technologies to tackle the treat of UAV’s.
• India’s three services have been operating UAV’s for almost two decades with several versions procured and deployed from time to time including searcher, Heron etc.,
• Recently Indian Army has given its go ahead of supply of another mini-unmanned aerial system Spylite.
• Rustom 2 UAV which is being developed by the DRDO is also expected to be delivered to the armed forces by 2020.
• This medium altitude UAV can fly at over 22000 feet and has an approximate flight time of 20 Hours.

About UAV’s

UAV is a revolution in weapon’s technology and has got two dimensions:

• Dimension for Attacker’s,
• Dimension for the Defender.

• For Attacker’s it has long endurance, without any human inside, and can carry sophisticated weapon’s.
• In terms of defender’s UAV is a nightmare, they are small hence difficult to catch in radar and difficult to engage.
• A UAV is much less costlier then a missile, hence to destroy a UAV one needs to expand millions worth of missile.
• “It is an attacker’s delight but defender’s Nightmare”.

Indigenous Aspect

• Some of the indigenously developed UAV’s are NISHANT, LAKSHYA and RUSTOM-1 crashed.
• It uses very composite materials which makes it difficult in any Radar of the world to catch.
• Aspect Ration (the Ratio between wing length and wing card) this is the first aircraft which has taken authorization and certification from Centre for Military Air worthiness and Certification and Director General Aeronautical Quality Assurance.
• Pay Load from medium range electro optical and long range electro optical payload, and laser Designator, and Electronic Intelligence Communication Intelligence and Image Intelligence payload.
• It has capability to integrate SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) on board and maritime surveillance.
• PADP model, which is a production agency as well as design partner which means the prototype of Rustom 2 which requires changes to build on deal Rustom 2, the time to manufacture it, can be reduced.
• It can do dual role of armed destroying enemy target and unarmed (Reconnaissance).

Public Vs Private Sector

• India is procuring armed UAV’s from Israel where drones are manufactured by the Private Sectors.
• But Before few decades, India did not allow the domestic sector to participate in defense manufacturing. Perhaps this could be a possible reason for our procurement from other countries.
• India should focus on building indigenous defense equipment with special focus on public sector and research.

Crucial Role of UAV’s in Indian Army

• Combat role with focus on hunter killer mission.
• MUMT (Manned and Unnamed Teaming), the UAV can join with piloted aircraft to destroy enemy target.

Issues to India

• More than Israel, China which needs to be watched as they are now developing more Sophisticated drones.
• Ethical issues like whether a machine which can make a choice to kill a human arouses debates