NEW DELHI: With the threat from hostile drones and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in both conventional and irregular warfare continuing to expand exponentially, the armed forces are stepping-up induction of a wide array of anti-drone systems but underline the urgent need for more advanced ones.The Army this week floated the tender for procurement of nine more indigenous integrated drone detection and interdiction systems (IDD&IS) to add to the ones already inducted under emergency procurements for the frontier with China.The IAF, in turn, wants 10 new kamikaze drones-based anti-swarm drone systems, 10 mobile micro munitions-based anti-swarm drone systems and 100-200 vehicle-mounted counter-UAS.Among other systems, IAF will begin inducting 200 radio frequency jammer guns from next month under a contract inked a year ago, while Army is getting around 30 vehicle-based drone jammers.“But much more advanced anti-drone systems, with multiple `soft-kill’ and `hard-kill’ options as well as much longer interception ranges, are urgently needed,” a senior officer said. These systems range from jamming, spoofing and blinding systems that disrupt the satellite or video command-and-control links of drones to laser-based directed energy weapons (DEWs) for hard-kills.A major problem, however, is that India is way behind other countries in indigenously developing such complex technologies. After DRDO developed anti-drone systems with 2-kilowatt to 10-kilowatt lasers, the armed forces ordered 23 such systems for around Rs 400 crore.“DRDO is developing DEWs with higher power. Many domestic private firms are also tying up with foreign companies for advanced anti-drone solutions. Let’s hope they work out,” another officer said.The Modi-Trump summit, incidentally, welcomed the new partnership between US company Anduril Industries and Indian Mahindra Group on advanced autonomous technologies to co-produce an “advanced AI-enabled counter-UAS”.The Army still relies heavily on old air defence systems, many of which have outlived their operational lives. “Though emergency procurements of anti-drone systems have been undertaken in recent years, they remain inadequate in countering the rapidly evolving threat from drones, which has been repeatedly reinforced by the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine conflicts,” he added.There is, for instance, the need to develop more advanced versions of the existing vehicle-mounted IDD&IS inducted by the Army Air Defence, which at present can soft-kill drones by jamming at 2 to 5-km range, with the effective hard-kill range through lasers only around 800-metre. “There is a mounting threat from low radar cross-section UAS and swarm drones,” an officer said.IAF air defence systems, with advanced radars and ground-to-air missile systems, are also geared towards thwarting air intrusions by large UAS, aircraft and helicopters. “The lack of adequate effective multi-sensor, multi-kill systems against smaller drones is an operational gap,” an officer said.A concerted effort is required to reduce the R&D time, fast-track procurement processes and ensure rapid induction of advanced counter-drone technologies. “The domestic defence industry should accelerate the production of advanced and scalable anti-drone systems to protect critical assets, particularly during wartime and heightened tensions,” he added.
Army & IAF intensify hunt for advanced anti-drone systems | India News
