The Hindu Business Line : `DRDO open to global tie-ups in aerospace'

WITH the experience of BrahMos missile and the progress in Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is confident of making big strides in aerospace and is open to global tie-ups with industry and research bodies.

In the planned development of the Medium Combat Aircraft (MCA), a higher performance version of the LCA, "We are willing to forge R&D collaboration as well as joint manufacturing to bring down costs and time of production," said Dr V.K. Saraswat, Chief Controller (R&D), DRDO.

Talking to Business Line on a range of issues in the growing aerospace sector, Dr Saraswat said BrahMos (The Indo-Russian joint venture) supersonic missile development is the first venture where India has successfully collaborated with both Russian industry and R&D institutes. Therefore, for the DRDO or HAL it would be practical to replicate such initiatives to benefit the country in development of fighter aircraft and sophisticated aerospace requirements.

Dr Saraswat said the DRDO is evolving a roadmap for preparing the country to meet the tough demands of network-centric warfare of the future, which involves intensive use of information technology (IT), communications and miniaturised technologies.

The roadmap for the next 10-15 years involves developing a new class of weapons that are guided by precision and propelled by smart, navigational systems to achieve maximum impact, in multiple locations and with least collateral damage. For India the bigger challenge is to make all these at low costs, he said.

While defence scientists have been making good progress in developing a range of sensors, radars and inertial navigation, one of the urgent needs is to put in place a GPS (global positioning system) network, that will dramatically improve the accuracy of weapon systems, said Dr Saraswat, who is responsible for several missile, air warfare and aerospace technology developments in the DRDO.

Recently, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have firmed up plans for the `GAGAN' project, which is a low-cost, GPS satellite network that is aimed to meet India's requirements, Dr Saraswat added.

Development of MEMS sensors in the next 3-4 years and precision guided sub-munitions (PGMs) in 5-6 years are major milestones to be achieved in the roadmap for network-centric capabilities. Building databases, encryption capabilities and establishing real time connectivity and communication, riding on IT infrastructure is the other big challenge, he said.

The DRDO also has a major responsibility in the upgradation of the tactical forces of the country. The new IT driven technology should have an interface with the legacy systems or existing weapons of the defence forces, wherein lies a huge challenge, Dr Saraswat said.