Indian Contribution
The Su-30MKI contains not only Russian, French, South African and Israeli Customer Furnished Equipment (CFE), but also a substantial percentage of Indian designed and manufactured avionics. They took six years to develop from start to MKI. Advanced avionics were developed by DRDO under a project code named "Vetrivale" (a Tamil name for the victorious lance carried by the youthful Lord Karthikeya or Murugan, a son of Parvati and Shiva) in close collaboration with the PSUs and the IAF. Indian avionics have been received and acknowledged enthusiastically by the Russian principals.
The following are the components developed by Indian agencies:
- Mission Computer cum Display Processor - MC-486 and DP-30MK (Defence Avionics Research Establishment - DARE)
- Radar Computer - RC1 and RC2 (DARE)
- Tarang Mk2 Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) + High Accuracy Direction Finding Module (HADF) (DARE
- IFF-1410A - Identification Friend or Foe (IFF)
- Integrated Communication suite INCOM 1210A (HAL)
- Radar Altimeter - RAM-1701 (HAL)
- Programmable Signal Processor (PSP) - (LRDE)
- Multi Function Displays (MFD) - Samtel/DARE
The 32-bit Mission Computer performs mission-oriented computations, flight management, reconfiguration-cum-redundancy management and in-flight systems self-tests. In compliance with MIL-STD-1521 and 2167A standards, Ada language has been adopted for the mission computer's software. The other DARE-developed product, the
Tarang Mk2 (Tranquil) radar warning receiver, is manufactured by state-owned BEL at its Bangalore facility.
These avionics equipment have also been certified for their airworthiness in meeting the demanding standards of Russian military aviation. The cumulative value of such indigenous avionic equipment is estimated to exceed Rs. 250 lakhs per aircraft. Since the core avionics were developed by a single agency (DRDO) - they have significant commonality of hardware and software amongst them using a modular approach to design. This obviously results in major cost and time savings in development; it also benefits the user in maintenance and spares inventories.
The DRDO has gone a step further and come out with a new design of the
Core Avionics Computer (CAC) which can be used with a single module adaptation across many other aircraft platforms. Thus the CAC which is derived from the computers designed for the Su-30MKI will now be the centre piece of the avionics upgrades for the MiG-27 and Jaguar aircraft as well. The CAC was demonstrated by DRDO at the Aero India exhibition at Yelahanka and attracted a good deal of international attention. Taken together with the systems already developed indigenously for the LCA (such as the Digital Flight Control Computer and HUD), clearly Indian avionics have a significant export potential in the burgeoning global market for avionics modernisation.
The navigation/weapons systems from the various countries were integrated by Ramenskoye RPKB.
HAL will supply components to Irkut for 300 Su-30s meant for export to Malaysia and Algeria apart from those meant for IAF.[7]