Indian Army to procure cutting-edge tech to detect enemy drones near border areas

The fresh RFI comes within months after the Army inducted indigenous integrated drone detection and interdiction systems in the northern border along the China border in the northern sector and is reflective of the efforts to develop and procure counter drone systems in the wake of an increase in threats from enemy unmanned aerial systems.

Developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Bharat Electronics, the Army Air Defence had got seven of these systems, five of which were inducted for deployment close to the northern borders. These systems too had both soft and hard kill options.

Apart from these indigenous systems, other improvised systems with different counter-UAS capabilities have been deployed by the Armed Forces. This includes prototypes of laser-based systems developed indigenously with Army Air Defence, improvised versions of ZU-23 and L/70 guns for drone detection and killing, ad-hoc handled jammers, low-level lightweight radars, among others. The Armed Forces have inducted anti-drone systems from Indian private firms and the Israeli SMASH 2000 plus systems to tackle enemy drone threats.

Parameters such as range of detection and other technical parameters will be submitted by the vendors when they submit their bids. However, the RFI states that it should have a radar system that should be able to detect and track low RCS targets, and assist in designation of the hostile targets to the weapon system. As per officials, it is likely that the advanced system may have a greater bandwidth of frequencies for tracking and taking down enemy drones and an improved range for the system beyond 800 metres, which is there for its MK 1 version.