Top UAV with the Indian armed forces

Hello aspirants,

The world is changing so is the war attack. In this scenario, UAV plays a crucial part in securing the border and for surveillance. In this post, we will look at some of the essential drones, i.e. UAV used by the Indian armed forces.

1. DRDO aura
   

• AURA is an autonomous stealthy unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV)  developed by the DRDO for the Indian Air Force.
• The design work on the UCAV is to be carried out by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA).
• The UCAV will be capable of releasing missiles, bombs and precision-guided munitions.

2. DRDO Imperial Eagle
   

• EAGLE is an Indian light-weight mini-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by the DRDO alongside  Aeronautical Development Establishment, and the National Aerospace Laboratories and supported by private vendors.
• Its primary users will be the National Security Guard and the military services.
• The Imperial Eagle weighs 2.5 kg and can carry either a daylight camera or thermal night vision camera.
• Designed to be carried in soldier’s backpack, be hand-launched and recoverable through a soft landing.
• It is completely autonomous with navigational way-points, which can be changed in-flight by the ground control.
• It is capable of providing continuous imagery of the onboard camera irrespective of the attitude of the aircraft.
• The primary advantage of the vehicle is that it functions on autopilot.
• Its orientation can be controlled using a dedicated real-time operating system (RTOS).

3. DRDO Netra
   

• The DRDO Netra is an Indian, light-weight, autonomous UAV for surveillance and reconnaissance operations.
• The DRDO Research and Development Establishment (R&DE), and IdeaForge, a Mumbai-based private firm developed Netra.
• Netra can also is launched from a small clearing, and it can fly up to a distance of 2.5 km from its take-off point.
• The operational altitude of the UAV is 200 m.
• It can carry out surveillance in an area of 1.5 km Line of Sight (LOS) at the height of 300 m, for 30 minutes on a single battery charge.
• It has a high-resolution camera with zoom to facilitate more comprehensive surveillance and can also carry a thermal camera for night operations.
• The zoom-in camera can identify human activity up to 500 m away and can send a live video feed of objects within a radius of 5 km.

4. DRDO Rustom
   

• It is a Medium Altitude Long Endurance uncrewed air vehicle (UAV) developed by DRDO for the Armed forces.
• Rustom has three variants like Rustom-I, Rustom-H, Rustom-II.
• Payload capacity of 95 kgs and have a length around 5.12m.
• Rustom-II can attain max speed up to 150kmps and operated along LOS.

5. DRDO Nishant
   

• It is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) developed by India's ADE (Aeronautical Development Establishment), a branch of DRDO  for the Indian Armed Forces.
• The Nishant UAV is primarily tasked with intelligence gathering over enemy territory and also for reconnaissance, training, surveillance, target designation, artillery fire correction, damage assessment.
• The UAV has an endurance of four hours and thirty minutes.
• The 380 kg Nishant UAV requires rail-launching from a hydro-pneumatic launcher and recovered by a parachute system.
• Launches at a velocity of 45 m/s are carried out in 0.6 seconds with 100 kW power, and subsequent launches can be carried out in intervals of 20 minutes.
• Nishant is one of the few UAVs in the world in its weight-class capable of being catapult-launched and recovered by using a parachute
• this eliminates the need for a runway as in case of the conventional take-off and landing with wheels.

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