India self-sufficient in electronic warfare: DRDO chief

[RPK]

India self-sufficient in electronic warfare: DRDO chief - The Times of India


CHENNAI: These days wars are not about brute force but about disabling your enemy before moving in for the kill. And today, electronic warfare has emerged as the preferred weapon of choice.

According to V K Saraswat, Director of R&D at Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), India is now self sufficient in electronic warfare. "Electronic warfare is very important in current context and our country has done extremely well," said Saraswat.

Strategic electronics powers many of the defence domains and operating at very high frequencies which are not accessible to all. "Our strength lies in the design and the vast knowledge pool we have. But we are weak in the manufacture of quality components, have limited R&D participation from industry and there is poor translation from prototype of the idea to production," said Y S Mayya, CMD of Electronic Corporation of India Ltd.

I V Sharma, Director of R&D at Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), said Rs 7,000 crore was spend on strategic electronics R&D in 2009.

"AKASH missile project was termed as a great example of government-public-private partnership. Institutions such as ECIL, IITs and IISc were part of the AKASH project," said Sharma.

"The critical issues in strategic electronics are the denial of technology and transfer of only manufacturing know-how in deals, not technology know-how. Also R&D is mainly being done by DRDO and few PSUs and efforts of private sector are very limited," added Sharma.


Read more: India self-sufficient in electronic warfare: DRDO chief - The Times of India India self-sufficient in electronic warfare: DRDO chief - The Times of India

 

[Kinetic]

DRDO did very well in the EW area for all three services. Samyukta is one of the deadliest EW. It can rule the both communication and radar areas from both land and air. DRDO is also developing next generation EW systems. They have got a huge EW testing range in Karnataka.

 

[brahmastra]

any more details on any of the home grown EW system?

 

[IndianArmy]

any more details on any of the home grown EW system?

Samyukta EWS is one such system which jam's enemy surveillance signals and voice and radar signals while ensuring its own signals are not jammed by the enemy,It is capable of handling both ground-based and airborne threats and What else, we have a No First use policy , and this is a Perfect tool to restrict the Hostile Missile in air...

Although better EWS are already made and some Being Made in the Country

 

[Veeru]

The news at the time of its induction.

Samyukta' presented to the Army

By Our Special Correspondent, The Hindu.


The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, presenting a model of ``Samyukta'', part of an electronic warfare system, to the Army chief, General N.C. Vij, at the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory in Hyderabad on Monday.

HYDERABAD, JAN. 19. In a landmark event aimed at strengthening the country's defence security, the first block of `Samyukta,' an indigenous, state-of-the-art Integrated Electronic Warfare (IEW) system was presented by the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, to the Chief of the Army Staff, Gen. N.C. Vij, in the presence of the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, here on Monday.

With this technological accomplishment in the electronic field, India has joined a select band of nations which possess this kind of world class system.

Hailing as a "fantastic job" the combined effort of the defence scientists, Army personnel, public sector units and private industry in developing the system which incidentally was sanctioned when Mr. Kalam was the Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, the President said "India has got the capability to design, develop and produce integrated electronic warfare system to meet the mission requirement. This system is uniquely configured for the frequencies from High Frequency to Millimetre wave for reconnaissance, direction finding and position fixing, listing, prioritising and jamming of adversaries' emissions."

Mr. Kalam handed over the first block of 26 vehicles to Gen. Vij. `Samyuktha' is a joint venture undertaken by the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL) in a consortium approach with other agencies. It is mounted on ground mobile vehicles and covers HF to Millimetre wave frequencies range. The Coverage of the electronic spectrum of frequencies is done in two segments — communication segment and non-communication segment — which are finally integrated with the master control centre (MCC) through appropriate transmission stations.

It is capable of handling both ground-based and airborne threats. It has the capability to intercept, detect, search, identify and locate complex communication and radar signals. It monitors and analyses communication and radar activity across Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA) and many other sophisticated features. Once deployed, the system has operational frontal coverage of 150/70 km.

Mr. Kalam also praised the team effort displayed in realising the system in a relatively short time, in spite of many denials. Now that the basic building blocks were indigenously available, user driven multiple systems could be evolved, he added. With India graduating in the development of electronic warfare systems, he said the time had come to take major decisions so that we could maintain our competence level and ensure provision of contemporary future systems to the armed forces. In this direction, he suggested that the Defence Research and Development Organisation consider conceptualisation of future systems with flexible architecture which are networked across the services.

The other suggestions include the need to create a world-class high quality infrastructure at Hyderabad by BEL to meet the ever increasing requirements of the services for the EW systems; DRDO and EW production agency should visualise the futuristic EW scenario through comprehensive simulation studies and work on demonstrable systems for user evaluation, specification modification and deployment, need to create a dedicated EW Quality Assurance agency and ensure meticulous software maintenance.

In view of our "Doctrine of no first use," he said that it was essential to study how synchronised action between EW systems of the Army (Samyukta), Naval EW (Sangraha) and Air Force EW (Tempest) could prevent the entry of warheads in our territory. wub.gif wub.gif wub.gif

Stating that future technologies for national security would be required to be developed and deployed in the areas of strategic electronics, strategic aeronautics and strategic astronautics, he said that almost each and every strategic technology would be dual purpose in that they served concurrently the needs of economic development of the nation.

Mr. Fernandes described the EW system as a weapon which would be useful not only during war but at peace time too. He said the guns had fallen silent on India's borders with both Pakistan and China.

He expressed the wish that the situation should remain like this forever. While there was peace on the one hand, there was the problem of insurgency on the other and stressed the need for remaining alert always. He also said that such sophisticated systems should be exported to friendly countries.

The Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, V.K. Aatre, talking to reporters earlier, termed it as major milestone. He said that it was the largest electronics project of the DRDO.

Only a few other countries possessed such a sophisticated system. "It implies how we can dominate the electromagnetic spectrum during a battle."

He explained how it helped in jamming the enemy's communication and other systems and provided an upper hand.

He said that each system of `Samyuktha' would consist of 145 vehicles of five blocks — three communication and two non-communication segments.

The entire system would be ready for deployment by the end of 2005. He declined to divulge the number of systems required by the Army.

The DLRL was designing and developing the EW systems for the Army and Navy and Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE) for the Air Force.

Expressing his happiness over the Army acquiring the sophisticated system, Gen. Vij described it as a dream come true for the Army.

 

[Veeru]

India to develop electronic warfare system soon

Bangalore, Nov 24 (IANS) India is developing its own radar-based electronic warfare system (EWS) with two test ranges in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to equip its armed forces for modern wars, a senior defence official said Wednesday.

'An indigenously developed radar-based EWS will be ready by 2013, with test ranges at Chitradurga in Karnataka and at Tandur near Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh,' state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief controller Prahlada said here.

Cost of each test range is estimated to be about Rs.200 crore.

Noting that modern day wars cannot be fought and won without EWS, Prahlada said the radar-based sophisticated communication system would use electromagnetic spectrum for attack, protection and warfare support to destroy the combat capabilities of an enemy.

'The prowess of electronic warfare system was amply demonstrated by the US armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. A prototype EWS has been integrated with MiG-27 fighter for test flights,' Prahlada said at the first India National Electronic Warfare workshop, organised by the India chapter of Association of Old Crows (AOC), based at Virginia in the US.

The Chitradurga aeronautical test range, which will come up by 2012 at the DRDO's 4,000-acre campus in the state, about 200 km from Bangalore, will be used for communication-based EWS and the Tandur range will be used for non-communication EWS.

'The testing centres will be operational by 2012. As per the plan, EWS will be integrated with MiG-29, Jaguar, Sukhoi-MKI-30 of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas by 2011,' Prahlada told about 300 delegates.

'Our goal is to develop the fourth-generation EWS by 2012 because without electronic warfare, you cannot win a war. Once you have it (EW capability), you have to test it, you can't wait for a war to test it,' Prahlada added.

The fourth-generation EWS is being developed by the state-run Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE) and Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DERL).

Once the air version of EWS is integrated and operational, the naval and army versions will be developed simultaneously.

Currently, EW systems are being tested in the IAF range at Gwalior in central India.

Stressing on greater self-reliance in production and procurement, the defence scientist said the country's defence research and development (R&D) establishments have been able meet about 50 percent of defence requirements indigenously and the target was to scale it up to 70 percent by 2020.

India to develop electronic warfare system soon

 

[Kinetic]

Prahlada said the radar-based sophisticated communication system would use electromagnetic spectrum for attack, protection and warfare support to destroy the combat capabilities of an enemy.

It is electronic attack. Israel's new Super Green pine has such capability. So is many US radars like Sea Based X-band radar. I think it can not only destroy electronic devices but also brought down missiles at certain ranges. Kudos to the scientists.

 

[Kinetic]

any more details on any of the home grown EW system?

As 'IndianArmy' sir pointed out I am giving some more details. There were three integrated EW systems developed by DRDO for the three services.

1) Samyukta for army
2) Tempest for airforce
3) Sangrah for navy

SAMYUKTA

Samyukta is a mobile EW consists of 140 vehicles in two segments. One is communication segment and another is non-communication or radar segment. It has the capabilities for surveillance, interception, monitoring, analysis, recording, listing, prioritising, location fixing and jamming of all communication and radar signals (from HF to MMW band).

According to Dr. VK Atre the than DRDO chief, "this system will ensure dominance over electro-magnetic spectrum which basically means it will jam enemy surveillance signals, voice and radar signals while ensuring its own signals are not jammed by the enemy. It is described as a force multiplier."

It has a coverage of 7,000 km.

DRDO developed it in cooperation with Bharat Electronics Ltd, Electronics Corporation of India Ltd and Corps of Signals of the Indian Army. Many private industries were involved in this huge project namely Tata, CMC (now part of Tata) etc. Together, they met the challenge of developing integrated real time command and control software having 10 million lines of code even though financially it was not as attractive as conventional business software. In fact, 40 small industries enabled the quick realisation of the goal by developing and producing the super components indigenously that had been denied by the advanced countries.




DIVYA DRISHTI

There is another project called "Divya Drishti" meant for RAW (NTRO). This one is more advanced and developed recently, but no detail information is available.

Divya Drishti is a joint SI Dte – DRDO programme, with the aim of interception, monitoring, direction finding and analysis (IMDFAS) of communication signals. The system will be installed at various locations on static and mobile stations. All stations will be connected through a satellite communication network. The system caters to the mission of building aircraft flight profile (Mission Analysis).


SANGRAHA

SANGRAHA is a joint EW Programme of DRDO and Navy. The system comprises of a family of EW suites for different Naval platforms capable of intercepting, detecting and classifying pulsed, CW, PRF agile, frequency agile and chirp radars. The systems employ modular approach facilitating deployment on a variety of platforms viz. helicopters, vehicles, small ships etc. Certain specific platforms apart from ESM also have ECM capabilities. State-of-the-art technologies like Multiple Beam Phased array jammers are employed in the system for simultaneous handling of multiple threats.