It hardly matters how precise new weapons are if the Army lacks the ISR reach to find targets. What separates a C4ISR network, from a C4ISRT network is targeting (the 'T') —the ability to use sensor data from a variety of systems to accurately direct long-range fires. The US's DoD is moving away from airborne ISR assets (vulnerable to longer ranged air-to-air missiles), and moving into using unclassified data-links to control ISR satellite constellation which tracks moving targets in real-time, for better resiliency and sustainability. A basic operational idea of Air-Land Battle requires an interconnected battle network with a sensor grid to "look deep and shoot deep."
In 2012, the Chinese government report called for 11 drone bases to be established along China's coastline by 2015. China has 50 drones flying near our border and has given 50 GJ Wing Loong to Pakistan. They have made plenty of CH4 & sky saker UAVs. China has copied Harop & Switch-blade (ch-901) self-detonating drones. When self-detonating drones fly slowly at low altitudes and are used along with radar jammers, it makes it quite hard for air-defence to react. Aerostats are not be able to sustain deployments in high-altitude areas due to strong winds. Late in 2017, the Indian Army floated a tender for 600 mini-UAVs for an estimated Rs 1,000 crore. Forward infantry troops near the front lines need dedicated mini-UAVs that can launch without airfields. Firstly, the role of drones in the initial conflict is very important. They are part of ISR and gathering of reconnaissance. Militants don't use UAVs for coordinating artillery units or conduct electronic warfare operations. Chinese drones are great for scanning huge swathes of area to look for potential targets of interest during 10 hours of flight time. They also rely entirely on satellite data-links that could be degraded during a time of war. UAV do not engage in terrain-masking, as that will lead to loss of data-link control. However, once the conflict starts, these Chinese drones can become susceptible. You can’t win a war by sending Drones or even arms Drones in well-defended air-space. Presently, there is a blurring of lines between war and peace as hybrid conflicts take centre-stage. Therefore, China makes the most of their drones for ISR when there is no war, no peace at its border. “The mini UAVs will be deployed close to the border and will be operated by the troops on the ground who will directly receive the information and act upon it thus shortening the Observe, Orient, Decide and Act (OODA) loop and filling up a void in the surveillance grid,” Brigadier Rumel Dahiya (retired), former deputy director general of IDSA. "In terms of cost of Drones, it is an issue, and it depends on capability. That increase in capability has its own cost. We know some systems are costly and some are not. So when we go head these will factor in final assessment. As an attack weapon they have been very successful, but they will be always limitation. There is combination of such asset that you need to have. We are aware of what kind of mix we should have.” EW and organic ISR are "essential on the modern battlefield." Russia has one major EW system per 10 km of frontage, usually situated approximately 7 km from the frontline. "Multiple Russian columns have been sent forward beyond the reach of their own air defence cover, and in others cases accompanying SAM batteries have been caught inactive in military traffic jams without making any apparent effort to provide situational awareness and defence against Ukrainian air assets. This has allowed the surviving Turkish-made Ukrainian Bayraktar TB-2 armed UAVs to operate with considerable effectiveness in some areas, inflicting significant losses on Russian vehicle columns." The US is looking at loitering munitions, and tools that allow each squad to manage their electronic signature. Clausewitz, a Prussian philosopher, said that military leaders must come to grips with how War is fought is changing (the character of war) within the context of the enduring nature of war (the human element: a political clash of opposing wills). Failure to distinguish between war's nature and character have significant and negative impacts on both the preparation and the conduct of war. Technologically and culturally, World War II was the real coming of age of the combat drone, beginning dramatically in spring 1944 when Nazi robot bombs started falling on London. In World War II, radio-controlled B-24s were sent on bombing missions over Germany. Germany’s Fieseler Fi-103, better known as the V-1, was the progenitor of the modern cruise missile and the most widely used drone of World War II. Taking a page from General William “Billy” Mitchell, controversial air power visionary and father the U.S. Air Force, Hitler targeted his wunderwaffe at civilian centers, hoping to bring England to its knees and forestall the imminent Allied invasion of Fortress Europe. While accomplishing neither, the V-1’s cultural impact is easily the longest lasting and most varied of any drone before or since. Rechristened the Vergeltungswaffe (revenge weapon), the V-1 was like a diabolical Model-T: a cheap, mass-produced, futuristic death delivery system. Some commentators wondered if the arrival of robot bombs might reshape civilization’s moral standards. The JB-2 (“Jet Bomb 2”) Thunderbug was reverse-engineered from V-1s captured intact and a virtual knock-off of the infamous doodlebug. Ultimately, the JB-2 was never deployed, but the suggestion of its targeting Japanese civilians paved the way for a public understanding of the atomic bomb. The advent of the nuclear age and its fears of instantaneous destruction overshadowed the birth of drone warfare, yet both weapons intertwined in meaningful ways. Both the V-1 program and Manhattan Project were conceived in 1942 as desperate scientific gambles, in partial awareness of each other. President Roosevelt’s initiation of the atomic program and its breakneck pacing were inspired by gloomy forecasts about a German atomic V-weapon falling on American cities. Stalin’s crash program to develop drones (fearing V-1 attacks on Moscow) was plagued with setbacks and not viable until 1952. Yet Soviet investment in ballistic missile technology outpaced American capabilities, eventually allowing the Soviets many firsts in the Space Race. The Cold War proved a technological boon to drone warfare, but a setback in terms of the broader public discussion on UAVs. America’s second-generation buzz bombs were radar controlled, launched from submarines, and fitted with nuclear warheads. Remotely controlled aircraft carried still cameras over battlefields in Vietnam. The Israeli Army used drones for surveillance and as decoys over Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in 1982. But the Gnat-750, developed by the San Diego defense contractor General Atomics, carried something new: video cameras. Herrmann was a German F1 driver, driving independently and for Mercedes-Benz, Abarth, and Porsche. Hermann's garage was secretly used as the site for the development of the light, 4-cylinder/4-stroke, liquid-cooled 65 HP engine used to power Amber, the direct predecesor of the Predator unmanned aerial drones in use today. The actual development of the drone was done by Abe Karem, a former Israeli pioneer in unmanned aerial vehicles who built his first, combat-proven drone for the 1973 war. That drone, called Albatross, caught the attention of DARPA, who in 1984 commissioned Amber, the drone with the Hans Herrmann-garage engine and the direct predecessor to Predator. UAVs were first used by the US in China during the 1960s. In fact, one of the first Chinese UAVs Wu Zhen 5 also known as CH-1 (not to be confused with ChangKong-1) was partially developed by reverse engineering one of Firebee unmanned aerial vehicles that was lost over China. Ryan Firebee (flown remotely from DC-130 Hercules) was one of the first jet-propelled drones, and one of the most widely used target drones ever built. The Ryan Firebee that the DoD received in 1951 would prove to the most revolutionary tool that would eventually change the very nature of how wars are fought. After WW2, the US Navy found itself in need of a jet-powered aerial target for gunnery practice and air-to-air combat training. The Navy contacted Teledyne-Ryan Aeronautical, a pilot school-turned-aircraft manufacturer located in San Diego, CA, and contracted the company to design and build a craft suitable for simulating tactical enemy threats—mimicking both piloted airplanes and missiles. Known around the Teledyne-Ryan campus as the Model 124, this new aircraft debuted in 1963 and was designated the Q-2C by the Navy—later renamed the BQM-34A. The US Navy bought the Firebee as the KDA-1, with much the same appearance as the Q-2A, differing mainly in that the powerplant was a Fairchild J44-R-20B turbojet, with 1,000 lbf (4.4 kN) thrust. The KDA-1 could be distinguished from the Q-2A from the fact that the KDA-1 had an inlet centerbody. The US Army also obtained a version designated the XM21 that differed from the KDA-1 only in minor details. During the 1960s, Ryan designed wire screens to cover the jet intakes, and added radar jammers, anti-radar paint, and blankets on the fuselage to further hide the small vehicle. This pre-stealth precaution was especially important to the drones, since not only were they flying behind enemy lines, they were flying solo. These detection countermeasures helped significantly improve the drone's survival rates to over 80 percent. This iteration, known as the AQM-34, also launched from DC-130s and landed with the aid of a helicopter. Over the decade between 1964 and 1975, the AQM-34 flew more than 34,000 ISR sorties over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War—from Japan and China to Vietnam and Thailand. The People's Republic of China is known to have recovered US AQM-34N Firebee units during the Vietnam War era, and reverse engineered it. The Chinese version is known as Wu Zhen 5 (WZ-5), export version is Chang Hong 1 (CH1). “They had no cover,” remembers Major John Dale, a DC-130 pilot stationed in Bien Hoa. “No one else was flying up there, nobody—no fighters, no bombers, just drones. That’s why we had 19 MiGs after us at one time. People don’t understand the magnitude of that. Manned aircraft were getting shot down all over the place, while the tiny drones were flying successful missions one after another.” If the drone was spotted, operators aboard the DC-130 could take over and guide it by hand. For instance, on January 6, 1973, a DC-130 crew launched a Ryan Buffalo Hunter drone over the Gulf of Tonkin; within five minutes, multiple MiG-21s were positioned to attack. The MiGs aggressively pursued the drone all the way to Laos, but didn’t get a single shot in; meanwhile, the drone gathered intelligence from all nine of its targets, including two airfields and three surface-to-air missile sites. One specific variant, the AQM-34Q, alone flew some 268 missions around North Korea between 1970 and 1973 monitoring radio transmissions. It was developed for super-high altitude reconnaissance—its Continental 2,800 lbf J100 turbojet engine allowed it to loiter at 75,000 feet for up to 8 hours—in response to the destruction of an EC-121 and the loss of its 31 crew members at the hands of North Korean MiG fighters. The success of the Firebee family was due to its simplicity and reliability, says aerospace historian Richard Hallion. “Firebee was a critically important step towards introducing practical, high-performance, remotely piloted aircraft into operational service,” he says. Their greatest achievement, according to the crews that operated them, was that they “saved lives by taking pictures over high-danger targets, rather than losing” U.S. pilots in spyplanes, says McBratney. Dale sums up his experience as a drone crew member: “Here I am getting recon of an enemy airfield and drinking a cup of coffee.” Sound familiar? Norwegian PD-100 Black Hornet is a unique, very tiny and lightweight helicopter micro-UAV. The PD-100 also carries GPS, a thermometer, compass and altitude sensor. Max speed is 10 meters a second (36 kilometers/22.5 miles an hour) and max altitude is about 500 meters and it can hover. A user can have a Black Hornet operational in less than a minute, including booting up the controller and doing a self-check. Black Hornet is launched and recovered from the open hand of the operator. The UAV can be controlled up to 1,600 meters from the operator, who can guide the UAV and zoom the camera and select the type of images to send back. The UAVs can be recharged in the carrying case. Despite the high cost, it increased combat capabilities considerably and saved lives of the troops using it. Even though commandos have night vision gear, they can’t normally see around corners or on the other side of walls or other obstacles. What makes Black Hornet so useful is that is virtually undetectable at night because it is battery powered (for up to 25 minutes per sortie) and can operate autonomously and transmit HD pictures and lower def video back to the operator via an encrypted datalink or store them onboard for viewing when the UAV returns to the operator. The Black Hornet, in the air for about 20 minutes, proved to be very useful despite the availability of larger Raven UAV. The Black Hornet 2 weighs 18 g (.55 ounce) and can handle wind gusts of up 43 kilometers (27 miles) an hour. Since 2011 military and police customers in over 30 countries have ordered over 5,000 Black Hornet PD-100 micro-UAVs. It was used by British commandos in Afghanistan during 2013 and U.S. troops started using it by 2015. The latest customer is the Australian Army. These smaller UAVs have opened up lots of other possibilities. Black Hornet 3 has higher resolution day and night sensors and moves faster, farther and does this for longer periods. The larger and heavier Black Hornet 3 is even more resistant to wind gusts. Indian Army has signed an approximately $20 million USD contract for undisclosed quantities of a high-altitude variant of locally-made SWITCH VTOL UAV (developed by ideaForge) after clearing tough field evaluations. It is man-portable and has the highest time on target compared to any other UAV in its class. They will be delivered over a period of 1 year. India's Archer-NG is renamed Israel's Heron-2 UAV, which will get 70% of its systems and components from Tapas BH-201 UAV (Rustom-2). IAI's Heron-2 is a medium-altitude, long-range (MALE), piston-engined reconnaissance UAV that can operate only from an airfield. Equipped with a powerful 1,200hp turboprop engine, the 4.6 ton Heron-2 can operate at 14,500 meters (50% higher than Heron 1). It uses diesel instead of aviation gas. That is above commercial air traffic and all the air-traffic-control regulations that discourage, and often forbid, UAVs from flying at the same altitude as commercial aircraft. Super Heron (Heron TP) was designed for exports and for maritime patrol over long coasts and to deal with the nasty weather sometimes encountered at sea. Most users prefer the unarmed version because that means the entire payload can be devoted to cameras, radars and other sensors. India was one of the first export customers for the Heron-2, having ordered 15 of them in 2013. In early 2021, India has leased four Heron-2 from Israel. Heron-2 retains the same dimensions and general performance specifications as the earlier Heron-1, with improvements including SATCOM data-linking that allows beyond-line-of-sight command-n-control of the MALE-UAV out to a distance of 1,000 km in beyond line of sight (BLOS) and has a range of more than 250 km in 'line of sight' (LOS). The drone is capable of operating at an altitude of up to 35,000 feet. However, Heron-2 cannot see beyond 60 km, if flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet above sea level. The endurance of 36 hours makes the Heron TP a competitor to the 5-ton MQ-9 Reaper (27 hours) but with a lot less combat experience and more expensive. Despite some reliability problems (and several crashes) since it entered service in 2008 the Heron-2 has proved to be very useful as a surveillance aircraft and could also carry missiles as needed. If a UAV is made to fly over plain ground and is abruptly made to enter a valley, it can lead to crashes. India has bought 8 Heron-2 MALE UAV. This comes after the US denied selling its Predator armed drones to India. The Heron TP-XP is identical to the Heron TP except that it has been re-engineered to limit its payload to 450 kg, rather than the 1,000 kg the Israeli Air Force’s Heron TP can carry. This change means that countries that are members of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) can purchase the Heron TP XP under Category II, which covers propulsion components and equipment, just as they can purchase the IAI’s smaller Heron 1 UAV. Under Project Cheetah, India has upgraded Eagle/Heron-1 (Machatz-1) UAV to Heron-2 configuration and equipped it with diesel engines built by Fiat Avio (Fiat Aviazione). This comes after the US denied selling its Predator armed drones to India. The Heron 1, because it was so similar to the Predator, has sold well to foreign customers who cannot obtain the MQ-1. The upgrades will cost over Rs 3,500 crore and add IAF's Heron with laser-guided bombs, air-to-ground anti-tank missiles and precision-guided munitions as well as advanced reconnaissance capabilities. India, Turkey, Russia, France, Brazil, El Salvador, the US, Canada, and Australia have either bought, leased, or licensed manufactured the Heron 1. Since its inception, it has been the backbone of surveillance. It can climb up to 30,000 feet and continue to relay feed to commanders on the ground. It can climb up to 30,000 feet and continue to relay feed to commanders on the ground. So that, we can manoeuvre forces on the ground. It has an endurance of 24- 30 hours at a stretch. We have day and night cameras and for bad weather, we have synthetic aperture radar which can give track of entire terrain. AirVenture 2015, Rotax introduced a new four-stroke engine, the 135 HP (cruise speed of 277kph) 1,352cc turbocharged 915iS, while coupled to a 3-bladed variable-pitch pusher propeller. It has a time-before-overhaul (TBO) rating of 1,200 hours. The company says it's expected to be available by about 2017. “It was failure of surveillance over 160 kms when Kargil occured. We were not aware over one and half to two months. We lacked surveillance equipment, helicopters were also not able to detect enemies. We were entirely dependent on foot patrol. There was (also) Intelligence failure, as there was absolutely no awareness that Pakistan Army was preparing for it. This resulted in wrong tactics adopted by the Indian Army in the initial days of Kargil conflict (in which we lost 527 soldiers). So the tactics adopted were of anti-insurgency. There was a single artery of road for supply chain. Surveillance has changed immensely. Our troops are sitting on heights in Kargil where we think they can come. We have also inducted additional forces to strengthen the counter infiltration grid. You know that we have UAVs (The Searchers and the Heron-2), Air assets with the Air Force. We have now generated capabilities with which we are able to ensure surveillance, I won’t say round the clock, but we have revisit capabilities in a reasonable time frame to ensure that such intrusions do not happen.” In 2002-3 the Indian Navy signed a contract with Israel Aerospace Industries IAI/Malat for one squadron of Searcher-2 and one Squadron of larger Heron UAVs and tasked Orbit Technologies of Israel which has also supplied the Rukmani terminals on ships for UHF, S, C and Ku band data transfer to and from GSAT 7, to design and fit container control stations on board INS Taragiri and INS Vindhyagiri. However, Searcher and Heron are large UAVs that can operate only from an airfield. In 2002, the IAF's use of the Searcher Mk II caught the eye of Pakistani media when the Pakistani Air Force reportedly shot down an Indian UAV near Kasur. In 2018, an Indian Heron UAV crossed the LAC near Doklam and crashed on Chinese territory. If a UAV is made to fly over plain ground and is abruptly made to enter a valley, it can also lead to crashes. Currently, the Navy has disclosed the acquisition of a minimum of 14 UAVs and operates two squadrons of heron and Searcher Mk II based in Kochi (IN342) and Porbundar (INAS 343). Its range is listed as 300 km, while altitude capabilities are at 20,000 feet. Heron drones are capable of operating for nearly 45 hours. Sri Lanka has also acquired the IAI Searcher which immensely aided operations, in its long-running fight against the LTTE Tamil Tigers. The IAF flies the Israeli-made Searcher-2 and Heron UAVs for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes and about 70 to 100 Searchers are in operation on Indian borders in western, northern and eastern regions. After the upgrades, the air force would be capable of operating these aircraft from far-off distances and control them through satellite communication system. Russian 500 kg Forpost UAVs is a license-built Israeli Searcher 2 UAVs. Russia first approached Israel to purchase 50 UAVs in 2007, including the Bird-Eye 400, I-View MK150 and Searcher 2. Russia licensed produces of the Israeli Searcher 2 UAV since 2014. Russia is also producing the Israeli Bird-Eye 400 under licence as the Zastava UAVs. In 2015 a Russian firm revealed that they were developing the one ton Inokhodets (similar to the MQ-1 Predator) and the 4.5-ton Altius-M (similar to the MQ-9 Reaper) UAVs. China improved BZK-006 is larger in size. The original entered service in 2006 with the Navy as a 1.2 ton UAV with a 150 kg payload, a cruising speed of 170 kms an hour, a satellite link (in addition to a line-of-sight radio link) , and an endurance of up to 20 hours. Israel's piston-engined Aerolight UAV designed and manufactured by Israel-based Aeronautics Defence Systems for Israeli Air Force, the US Navy and additional customers worldwide. It is used for close range ISR missions, training, and testing of experimental payloads. Addition the Aerolight can conventional wheeled take-off & landing capabilities from a runway or catapult launcher and be recovered through a parafoil recovery system. The Aerolight is small-medium sized and light and can be quickly assembled or dismantled and is easily converted for different mission types. It can operate both day and night even in difficult weather conditions. Flying at a maximum altitude of 10,000ft, the UAV can provide its operators with real time intelligence data by performing target acquisition and reconnaissance operations over a large area. It can fly at a maximum speed of 185km/h. The cruise speed is 92km/h. The range is 150km. The UAV can loiter in air for a maximum of four hours. Elbit Systems of America's (subsidiary of Elbit Systems) Skylark I and Skylark II are small/mini piston-engined UAVs designed as a manpacked system for tactical surveillance and reconnaissance. It has a range of 10 km and are launched by hand (no need of airfields) so ideally suited for forward infantry troops near the front lines. Skylark is in operation with the militaries of Australia, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden. It has been deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Indian Army has made a formal request to Defence Ministry for 75 Skylite UAVs to be purchased. Indian Army requirement is 44 tactical UAVs costing 3,000 crore. Skylark II was unveiled in 2006. It has a range of 60 km and designed to be operated by a two-person crew and deployed using HMMWV class field vehicles. In December 2007, South Korea decided to purchase Skylark II system. The Skylark I has also been selected by France's Special Forces in March 2008. Skylark I-LE Block II has an operational range up to 15km, maintains approximately three hours of endurance and is designed to perform in harsh environments such as high altitudes and gusting winds. The higher you go, the more you see. Even though the Indian Air Force has some large UAVs, it cannot always get an aircraft or helicopter into the air when the army needs some airborne surveillance. Smaller UAVs solve that problem. However, the precision afforded by HALE UAVs comes with top-end technology that can be expensive. The Israeli SpyLite mini-UAS by BlueBird Aero Systems, which weighs 9.5 kg, has a payload of 1.4 kg, and its 40 kg rail launch catapult can be carried by two infantry soldiers (in two 20 kg). Minimum speed is 60 km/hr and max speed is 120 km/hr. Max endurance is 4 hours and it can operate up to 50 kms from a moving controller. When an operation starts, and “look down” is needed, the local commander can launch a UAS within minutes. Its electric motor carries it to 3,000 feet above the surrounding terrain, from where a video camera and infra-red sensors beam back high-definition images in real time. After a mission, the SpyLite flies back and lands using a parachute. It takes about 15 minutes to land one, replace the battery, and get it into the air again. If communication and control links get broken, the UAS has a “return home” facility that guides it back to where it was launched. It was introduced in 2010. Even though the Indian Air Force has some large UAVs, it cannot always get an aircraft or helicopter into the air when the army needs some airborne surveillance. Mini-UAVs solve that problem. Israel's BlueBird Aero's SpyLite (in partnership with India's Cyient) was the only mini-UAS that met all Indian Army’s requirements and passed the demanding trials at altitudes above 5,000 metres. The higher you go, the more you see. Unlike the 2 kg Raven uav, the Spylite was designed to cope with high winds. The army made this purchase using the small discretionary fund major commands have for emergency items. Late in 2017, the Indian Army floated a tender for 600 mini-UAVs for an estimated Rs 1,000 crore. In 2021, US Marines are switching from the RQ-21 and ScanEagle UAVs to the long-endurance MQ-9 Reaper UAV (with 6 hard-points) as US national strategy has changed away from counter-terrorism towards dealing with Chinese aggression and expansionism. US Marines had run into quality and reliability problems that that were not fully resolved. Drdo has revitalized its drone program with a new mission head and objectives. Rustom-2 drone was also earlier powered by Austrian 180 HP Austro engines (with twin turbochargers), replacing the 115hp Rotax engine. Two wing-mounted NPO Saturn’s 36MT turbofan engines (450Kgf) has since 2012 used to power the 2t-class Rustom-2, delivering a thrust of around 73.55 kW (~100 hp) each, which is for this reason that the diesel engine-powered version of Rustom-2 was re-named as Tactical Advanced Platform for Aerial Surveillance (Beyond Horizon) Tapas-201 MALE-UAS. The original completion date of the project was 2016, it was extended to 2023. TAPAS BH-201 (Rustom-2) has an operating altitude of 30,000ft (a service ceiling 32,000ft) above ground with endurance of 1.25h and carry specific payloads of 320kg to 350 kg and will have a range of 250kms. Rustom UAVs are meant to replace Israeli Heron unmanned aerial vehicles being used by the air force and the navy. But the biggest challenge faced by the scientists is the excess weight of the airframe. The airframe had a weight of about 2,400 kg by 2015 end, which ADE scientists would have to bring down to about 1,700 kg in the final version for accommodating every sensor package. And to increase its range to 1000kms and more endurance. The sixth prototype (AF-6) of Rustom-2 features embedded into the system are: a solid state relay-based low weight power distribution unit; an indigenous inertial navigation system (INS) developed by RCI, Hyderabad; Lithium ion batteries and satellite communication (SATCOM) link. In its final configuration, Tapas-201 will sport a combination of sensors, both indigenous and sourced from abroad, including electro-optical payloads, targeting payloads and kits for communications intelligence. Tapas lacks beyond-line-of-sight targeting due to lack of high-speed SATCOM data-link signal receiver. "ELBIT Systems developed multi-band SATCOM antennae is the phased-array type that are cheaper, smaller and far easier to maintain, compared to the parabolic antenna developed by the DRDO. IAI's ELTA Systems has offered smaller and lighter AESA based SAR payloads compared to the slotted-array developed by DRDO." US Honeywell has consulted with the team at the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) over the last 2 years, fine-tuning the Tapas-201. DRDO has blamed that the reason for the ongoing delay is due to indigenous replacements after the U.S. denied export of actuators due to MTCR restrictions. There has been a delay since U.S. refused to give clearance for Moog manufactured servo actuators that are needed for critical high-performance motion control components and integrated systems for extreme environments. India's Archer-NG is renamed Israel's Heron-2 UAV, which will get 70% of its systems and components from Tapas BH-201 UAV (Rustom-2). The armed version of Rustom-1 has is called Archer. Rustom-1 is a tactical UAV & therefore it can’t be used as MALE-UAV. Rustom-H mk1 HALE UAV, though without the speed, draws from ADE’s older UAV products — the decade-old pilot-less target aircraft Lakshya and the Nishant. It is the biggest unmanned system India has ever attempted. The aircraft is named after former Indian Institute of Science professor Rustom Damania, who pioneered aviation research in India in the 1980s. India imports the resins used in manufacturing of composite end-products. The 380 kg Nishant Remote Pilot Vehicle requires rail-launching from a hydro-pneumatic launcher. It is a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV. Indian Army cancelling any further orders and shelving junking phase II of the programme, after three of the four systems supplied by the DRDO ended up in crashes. Nishant was not the first failed UAV program for DRDO. In 2008 Indian Air Force received three PTA (Pilotless Target Aircraft) UAVs. PTA had been in development for 27 years, and consumed over $36 million. The air force quickly found PTA unable to perform as promised. Some of the major deficiencies were inability to operate at the promised 8,600 meter (28,000 foot) altitude. The PTA was barely able to reach 7,200 meters (20,000 feet.) Worse, the PTA could only survive about five landings, not the ten they are supposed to be able to handle. The biggest problem appears to be with the engine, which has not been able to deliver the promised power and reliability. Unmanned Air Vehicles VTOL flying wing (similar to experimental Convair XFY-1 Pogo prototypes) that can take-off from small US Navy ships is part of DARPA Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node (Tern) program Sony Mobile and ZMP has jointly found “Aerosense Inc”. Aerosense's CTO is Kotaro Sabe, who worked on the electronics maker's Aibo robot dog and Qrio humanoid robot, both of which were shelved when Sony shut down its entertainment robot business about 10 years ago. Sony mentioned before that the company won't sell drones, but instead will use them to capture images from the skies which — when combined with cloud-based data processing — will provide business customers with a range of services and data to help with tasks like measurement, surveying, observation and inspection, and so it will likely carry different types of instruments, depending on the task at hand.
Designed for use in urban areas such as construction zones, the AS-MC01-P quadcopter weighs about 3 kilograms and can fly for about 15 to 20 minutes on a battery charge. It can operate autonomously, flying within a preset zone, and is equipped with GPS, Wi-Fi and an inertial navigation system. The venture's other craft, the AS-DT01-E winged VTOL drone, has a rotor system that allows it to fly like a helicopter or a plane. The advantage of the winged format is that it can fly at much higher speeds than most non-military drones -- up to 170 kilometers per hour compared to high-speed quadcopters that fly at 75 kph. Weighing 7kg, it can carry a 3kg payload and operate for at least two hours on a battery charge. Drones are generally thought of as fun toys for gadget lovers, but there’s serious potential to simplify and enhance many processes for businesses. Drones can be used in land surveys, to enter places ravaged by accidents or natural disasters for rescue efforts or insurance purposes and deliveries, for example. That applies to a wide range of industries, including agriculture, oil and gas, town planning and highway development to name just a few.
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