India Set to Achieve Self-Reliance in Drone Production in 4-5 Years

India is on course to achieve complete self-reliance in drone technology, both in armed and unarmed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), that the country would be able to deploy for tactical missions and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) purposes against its adversaries, the Director and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the country's fastest-growing defence start-up has said.

According to R Shivaraman, the co-founder of weapons manufacturer Big Bang Boom Solutions (BBBS) which supplies anti-drone systems to the Indian Armed Forces, the growth of India's drone industry in the last few years has been phenomenal.

Around 50 drone manufacturers have entered the market in the past 5 years and the orders have now started to flow in that ecosystem, he highlighted.

Currently, value propositions for Indian manufacturers are 40 to 50% but given the amount of business that is coming in, there are already vendors that have started to make drone controllers and motors and are looking at more exciting opportunities, Shivaraman noted.

"I think the drone industry is poised to achieve true Atmanirbharta (self-reliance) compared to any other industry in the defence sector in India. I believe by 2028-2029, India will achieve self-reliance in both armed and unarmed drones, including platforms for ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] purposes, thus cutting the country's imports in this segment from abroad," he told Sputnik India in an exclusive interview.

BBBS Enters Drone Manufacturing to Cut India's Reliance on Import

BBBS started with aiming to build products for the defence sector around 5 years back. Since then, it has always been focused on offering best-in-class military systems to the Indian Armed Forces and its clients overseas, Shivaraman stated. This commitment to drone manufacturing was integral to the company's vision from the very start, he added.

Based on the Ministry of Defence iDEX (Innovations for Defence Excellence) program, which allows start-ups to build a product for the country's defence forces program, BBBS has been able to scale up its product portfolio and has reached where it is today, Shivaraman emphasised.

Having the Indian Air Force (IAF), the Indian Army, and the Kenyan Ministry of Defence as the main customers as of today, the company strives to producing approximately 100 anti-drone systems annually in the future and an equal number of other military platforms that they have, he underlined.

"We have been contracted to supply around 50 anti-drone systems to the Indian Defence Ministry, a part of which would go to the IAF and the Army. Moreover, we are constantly scouting for more customers, including the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs. Plus, we are currently engaging with 15 foreign countries, holding discussions to supply our products there," Shivaraman expressed.

Last week, BBBS signed its first export contract with the Kenya's Ministry of Defence and is set to supply its anti-drone system to the country in the next few months, he noted.

BBBS

BBBS' primary product is the anti-drone defence platform called the Vajra Sentinel System. It primarily uses a radio-frequency or RF-based AI (Artificial Intelligence) enabled sensor technology that allows it to detect and neutralise drones at long distances.

Shivaraman believes AI is going to make it a lot easier for the soldiers, the commanders, and the brigadiers, to be able to make strategic decisions as they are going to use AI to analyse data differently, examine large volumes of data, and be able to effectively counter new and emerging threats. He suggests that it will be the first step towards AI playing a big role in the warfare scenario.

"For example, even in harsh environments like an urban setting where detecting a drone is extremely difficult due to electricity poles, and overhead wires, we have managed to do that due to our indigenously developed AI-fingerprinting technology that we have created. That is one of the USPs [unique selling property] of our anti-drone system and you will be amazed to know that not many countries have this technology," Shivaraman asserted.

Vajra Strike System

The company's latest offering is the Directed Energy Weapon (DEW) named the Vajra Strike System, that uses a high-energy laser to effectively neutralise targets in the range of 1.5 to 2 kilometers.

The Vajra Strike System, which is still under development, will be half the size of DRDO's DEW but equally effective. Moreover, its DEW is versatile and user-friendly, he explained.

The sturt-up's anti-drone systems provided to the IAF and Indian Army are primarily soft-kill systems, which are generally ineffective against autonomous drones that are being used by state and non-state actors, Shivaraman said.

"The Vajra Strike System, on the other hand, will allow for the deployment of the hard-kill system, thereby providing an overarching cover from drone threats to the Indian military," he emphasised.

See Through Armour (STA)

BBBS also manufactures See Through Armour (STA), which aids the all-round survivability of the armoured combat vehicle.

The STA project is an initiative launched by the Indian Army's Mechanised Infantry Regiment, and it is entirely custom-designed for them, Shivaraman said.

"What is unique about our STA is that every part of the system functions independently of the other. There is an edge-computing algorithm that we have used in it so that even in case there is significant damage to a particular unit of the STA, the entire system doesn't collapse. Additionally, we have avoided a single point of failure which provides a critical USP to our systems," he concluded.

Defenсe News

New Robo-Mules and Drones: India's Leap Forward in Logistics

3 September, 21:30