UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

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vic
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by vic »

http://frontierindia.org/blog/drdo-youn ... 1-winners/

Vikram Singh, Scientist ‘B’, Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), Bengaluru, has made valuable contribution in design of a controllable flying wing UCAV configuration for KAVERI Engine
Indranil
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Indranil »

akimalik wrote:I just read on another forum that Rustom MALE version has had a test flight.
Any other confirmations?
Rustom MALE is Rustom-1 ... and ofcourse it has flown :-)
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by keshavchandra »

It's Official: Kaveri Will Power India's UCAV:Livefist
Link
Two bits of information from the government landed today confirming that India's in-development Kaveri turbofan is being officially looked at, in modified form, to power the country's secret stealth UCAV, codenamed AURA, a programme that was first revealed here on Livefist.

First, Indian defence minister A.K. Antony told Parliament today, "Kaveri spin-off engine can be used as propulsion system for Indian Unmanned Strike Air Vehicle (USAV)." (Never a shortage of acronyms in Indian defence projects).

A few hours later, a few kilometres away at the headquarters of the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), as part of an annual awards ceremony, scientist Vikram Singh of the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) received the Young Scientist Award for his "valuable contribution in design of a controllable flying wing UCAV configuration for KAVERI Engine."
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by sum »

^^ Spotted the Rustom buzzing around the Sarjapur ORR area for a good 30 minutes with repeated passes.

Has a pretty distinctive sound of its engine...
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Singha »

they must be confident of the system to be flying it over a populated area now. normally its flown from kolar r&d airfield only unless proven.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by sum »

^^ Had the exact same thought!!

Gave a darshan of the Rustom to all my team-mates and explained a bit about what the " strange buzzing thing" was
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Sachin »

sum wrote:Spotted the Rustom buzzing around the Sarjapur ORR area for a good 30 minutes with repeated passes.
Has a pretty distinctive sound of its engine...
When was this sir? Need to keep my eyes and ears open as well.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by sum »

Yesterday noon from around 12:30 PM till almost 1:30 PM.... Am sure would have been visible from your IT-general office also :)
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by MN Kumar »

Sum are you sure about the Rustom. There is a twin turbo plane thats buzzing for thelast couple of weeks with a very distinct sound. Its forward section looks very similar to Rustom.
Added later: I am talking about the Piaggio Avanti P180. This is a regular at old airport.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by sum »

^^ Will definitely look closely the next time i spot the craft ( if i manage to).

Thanks for the heads up on the Avanti, Kumar-ji.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by member_22872 »

And not sure if this is has been posted before, flexible wing bird, flexible wing based flying objects are difficult to design as compared to quad rotors:

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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by chetak »

Murugan wrote:X posted from Nukkad

One Dr Vijay Kumar has developed quadrotor robots. Claims he had flown 20 such quadrotors in tight formation only few inches apart of one another.

Will render UAVs useless ET reports.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... nsors-uavs
The Nano Quad is a quadrotor, a helicopter with four rotors whose speeds are precisely controlled by microcontrollers 600 times per second to produce just the right lift, roll, pitch and yaw. Onboard sensors allow it to sense its attitude and respond with remarkable agility. In fact, it can perform a 360 degree flip in less than half a second with angular rates approach 2000 degrees per second.
More:

http://singularityhub.com/2012/03/08/fl ... -ted-2012/
At a recent Aeronautical Society meeting I saw a flyable six rotor model made by students of a TN engineering college. Here the rotor speeds were 1200 rpm (variable) IIRC.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Philip »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... drone.html

Iran 'hacks software of US spy drone'
Iran has hacked the software of an advanced American spy drone which came down its territory and has begun building its own copies of the aircraft, officials claimed.
22 Apr 2012
Tehran said it had decoded hard drives and databases on board the RQ-170 Sentinel, in an announcement which increased fears Russia and China would also soon gain access to the top secret technology.

Brig Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps aerospace forces, gave details of the aircraft's operational history as proof that engineers had successfully probed its records.

He said the drone had flown over Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan a fortnight before the al-Qaeda chief had been killed in an American special forces raid.

It had flown in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, in November 2010 before suffering technical difficulties and being sent for tests on its sensors to an airfield near Los Angeles.

"Had we not accessed the plane's soft wares and hard discs, we wouldn't have been able to achieve these facts," he told the Fars news agency.

Related Articles

Iranian TV shows off 'US drone'
08 Dec 2011

Iran to 'reverse engineer' US drone to exploit secrets
12 Dec 2011

Iran shows off captured US drone
08 Dec 2011

The Tehran-based Mehr news agency added that Iran had "started manufacturing models of the captured US spy plane", but gave no more details.

The aircraft, which is supposedly the CIA's unseen "eye in the sky", can carry a payload of advanced sensors capable of beaming back a trove of imagery and electronic intercepts.

Analysts believe Iran, China and Russia are also particularly interested in the stealth technology and wing coating materials which allow it to escape radar detection.

The unarmed drone was paraded on Iranian state television, apparently looking intact, after coming down 140 miles inside Iran's eastern border in December.

Tehran said it had been brought down by electronic attack after taking off from an American base inside Afghanistan.

America acknowledged the loss of the aircraft, but said it was more likely to have crashed through malfunction.

Analysts suggested at the time that data encryption, self-destruct mechanisms and damage sustained during the crash could all make it impossible for Iranian engineers to use or reverse engineer the technology.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by krishnan »

Probably accessed some log files which is much easier to get
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Kailash »

DIAT to provide eyes and ears for country’s first armed war bird
As India prepares to join the elite club of countries possessing Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV), a DRDO laboratory in the city has been working on conceptualising and designing the eyes and ears of India’s first armed war bird.

Scientists at DRDO’s Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT), a deemed university, have been working on designing radars and sensors of Aura, the first indigenous UCAV currently under development at the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), Bangalore.

In an exclusive interview, DIAT Vice-Chancellor Prahlada said, “Scientists at DIAT are working on development of radars for the UCAV programme currently under way at ADA. The expected timeline for development of a prototype is about a year-and-a- half from now. The radar will provide C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) capability to the aircraft. Research is on on development of lightweight radars to reduce weight of the aircraft, save maximum energy and provide realtime feedback to the control centre,” said Prahlada.

Aura, a stealth UAV capable of firing precision-guided munitions at targets is expected to add teeth to the country’s existing fleet of UAVs. While the first flight is expected to take place in 2015, the targeted year of induction 2017. Prahlada added, “Work is currently on regarding selection of materials, components and technological aspects of the radars. We are currently working with our own budgets.”

It may be noted that DIAT receives annual funds of Rs 50 crore and is expected to get an increased funding of Rs 100 crore per year over the next three years. “DRDO wants to develop DIAT into a centre for basic research, which can then be implemented in technology being developed at DRDO laboratories and industries. World over, the basic R&D is outsourced to universities and that is exactly what is being implemented here at DIAT. The laboratory has already entered into an agreement with Naval Postgraduate School and professors there regularly interact with researchers here and vice-versa. Plans to enter into a collaboration with Israel are under way,” he said.

The laboratory has 200 MTech students and 50 PhD scholars. Future plans include introduction of a management wing to confer an MBA equivalent degree to personnel from the DRDO, Armed Forces and even civilian sectors. Prahlada also spelt out the need for starting an aeronautical programme at DIAT.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by aniket »

sum sir, you are talking about Rustom UAV 1 [MALE] right ??
IIRC isn't there a HALE version of it under development ?Any update on that.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Sachin »

sum wrote:Yesterday noon from around 12:30 PM till almost 1:30 PM.... Am sure would have been visible from your IT-general office also :)
Guess there was a sortie today as well. But if I got it right, there were two sorties with two different types of the craft.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Aditya_V »

It would nice if UAV engines are silent enoguh that they cannot be heard from above 8000ft so that abduls need not know of thier presence overhead.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by chackojoseph »

Aditya_V wrote:It would nice if UAV engines are silent enoguh that they cannot be heard from above 8000ft so that abduls need not know of thier presence overhead.

That reminds me. I have a possible write up on UAV engine program in DRDO. I'll put that up ASAP.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Aditya_V »

Thank you
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by chackojoseph »

vic
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by vic »

Detailed version of UAV engine article:-

Detailed PDF Article
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Aditya_V »

chackojoseph wrote:This is for yo Aditya_v,

Indian UAV Engine development programs
If only we could have used those engines on Nishant and deploy them in thousands. We should be able to overhelm PAF defences, attack PN Air bases and PN ships within a few hours of war and then take out PA missile launchers and Sink Paki subs in a day or 2.

Paki Army can then be sustained 40-50 day bombing and shall duly surrender for the H&D of the Paqjabis.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by venkat_r »

vic wrote:Detailed version of UAV engine article:-

Detailed PDF Article
AoA - Great to see the progress being made and the approach! Good times ahead.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by member_23438 »

what's the use? I am pretty sure the muslim appeasers will never allow these to kill the pigs of piggistan (beginning with suar sayed :evil:)
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by kenop »

Curious about the range and endurance of the indigenous machines (whether pvt or govt). Any cheat sheet reference available?
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by vic »

hi chacko

There was a mention in brochure of ETBR&DC in Def Expo that they intend to develop an engine for trainer aircraft (HTT_40??). If such an engine is developed then it can be used for HTT-40, Saras and turboprop version of Rustom (i.e. requirement of around 400-500 engines). HAL already makes Garrett engines and a new engine would just be small step forward as current engines in International market are all 1950s-60s technology.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by vic »

I think alongwith discussing the past, it is equally important to use this knowledge for the future, so what are the suggestions by the Gurus for the future? My take:-

1. Continue Su-30MKI production till atleast 2025 as PAKFA production will only stabalise around 2022-25. This will prevent reoccurance of same problem when we closed Mig-21 line too early and spent lot of money in upgrading old airframes.

2. Upgradation of “old” Su-30MKI airframes should be delayed after 2025 and should be done by using indigenous technology.

3. Order additional SU-30MKI and increase requiermnt of PAKFA to 350 to prevent piecemeal orders.

4. Permit development of LCA as AJT

5. Use LCA + “indigenous” Kaveri for UCAV

6. JV Kaveri should be atleast 120kn to cater for weight overshoot in AMCA

7. AMCA development budget should be atleast US$ 20Billion

8. We should participate in development of new engine and radar of PAKFA

9. We should start development programme for 800-1600hp turboprop/turboshaft engine as technology follow on of Garret and Shakti engine series.
10.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by pragnya »

vic, no guru, just my thoughts -
I think alongwith discussing the past, it is equally important to use this knowledge for the future, so what are the suggestions by the Gurus for the future? My take:-

1. Continue Su-30MKI production till atleast 2025 as PAKFA production will only stabalise around 2022-25. This will prevent reoccurance of same problem when we closed Mig-21 line too early and spent lot of money in upgrading old airframes.
this is bound to happen IMO though not upto 2025 but atleast till 2020. remember all Mig 21s will be pensioned off by 2017, some Mig 27s too will start phasing out sooner as more Rafales, LCAs start filling up but the 'catch' is entries will not match the exits. HAL already overburdened will be hard pressed to produce the numbers besides production QC issues will have to be sorted out too. also they have to setup new assembly line for the PAKFA. so SU 30MKIs for which the production line will have stabilised will see more inductions over and above 272 (?) as at present.
2. Upgradation of “old” Su-30MKI airframes should be delayed after 2025 and should be done by using indigenous technology.
SU 30MKIs already sport indigenous items already. it is very possible we will see more in the times to come. there were indications that composites will find their way in the SU 30MKIs. i am not sure if this has already happened??

why delay till 2025?? are you expecting some of the upgrades can be cross breeded on to SU 30MKI from PAKFA??
3. Order additional SU-30MKI and increase requiermnt of PAKFA to 350 to prevent piecemeal orders.
while SU 30MKIs are going to see more orders as i said before i doubt the PAKFA order of 350. where will AMCA sit??
4. Permit development of LCA as AJT
agree.
5. Use LCA + “indigenous” Kaveri for UCAV
they are already thinking along those lines but with AURA with modified Kaveri (snechma).

http://livefist.blogspot.in/2012/03/its ... ndias.html

http://livefist.blogspot.in/2012/04/ind ... -drdo.html
6. JV Kaveri should be atleast 120kn to cater for weight overshoot in AMCA
even a 90KN kaveri should be ok for AMCA. remeber it is a 2 engined beast in medium class.
7. AMCA development budget should be atleast US$ 20Billion
i wish we were USA!!!
8. We should participate in development of new engine and radar of PAKFA
we should build on AL 31FP engine which we are license building and get the russians to do the same with PAKFA albeit with TOT in real terms including the metallurgy part of the components.
9. We should start development programme for 800-1600hp turboprop/turboshaft engine as technology follow on of Garret and Shakti engine series.
absolutely.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by chackojoseph »

vic wrote:hi chacko

There was a mention in brochure of ETBR&DC in Def Expo that they intend to develop an engine for trainer aircraft (HTT_40??). If such an engine is developed then it can be used for HTT-40, Saras and turboprop version of Rustom (i.e. requirement of around 400-500 engines). HAL already makes Garrett engines and a new engine would just be small step forward as current engines in International market are all 1950s-60s technology.
Yes. I have read about it too. They intend to develop turbo props. The project ain't going anywhere I suppose. The Turbo shaft they wanted to develop will not be done either. They might go for co-development of engines in future.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Sagar G »

vic wrote:Detailed version of UAV engine article:-

Detailed PDF Article
Can you please upload the PDF in another file sharing site, I haven't been able to download it despite several attempts.

TIA
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by pralay »

livefistUAV INDIA Part 1: First Ever Impressions Of AURA, India's UCAV
DRDO chief Dr Vijay Saraswat while making a presentation in Sweden last month at the Aerospace Forum. showcased DRDO’s Much Publicized ”Secret ” Unmanned Strike Air Vehicle - USAV, mostly know has Aura , Aura is will be a Stealth unmanned Strike bomber aircraft in development under Project director Shri Biju Uthup .

First CAD images which has come up in shiv aroor’s live fist blog , seems to suggest what has been said about it for sometime now . Aura seems to be much inspired from Dassault nEUROn and clearly a a nEUROn derivative, images show two precision-guided munitions in its weapons bay .

ADA recently had described the AURA as a “self-defending high-speed reconnaissance UAV with weapon firing capability”. and DRDO’s Chief Controller, R&D (aeronautics), Dr Prahlada had said, “its Capable of flying at altitudes of 30,000 feet and weighing less than 15 tonnes, the UCAVs will have rail-launching for the missiles, bombs and PGMs (precision-guided munitions) they will carry.”

DRDO and Dassault Aviation have not publicly have agreed for any agreement on AURA project , but have in past offered to assist DRDO in their unmanned programmes , which includes Aura .
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Post by nits »

Lethal 'Kamakazi' drone that fits in a backpack
United States forces are poised to deploy pint-sized drones, small enough to fit into soldier's rucksack, but packed with tiny explosive warheads enough to blast targets with pinpoint accuracy.The new drones christened 'Switchblade' weighs less than six pounds and takes out a sniper on a rooftop without blasting the building and Pentagon has given the go ahead for deployment of these mini killer machines, Los Angeles Times reported quoting Pentagon officials.
Image Image
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Singha »

another hyper expensive solution to keep the fatkats fed and groomed. maybe they ought to add VLO shaping and cooled exhaust as well? and how about sticking in a IIR sensor and AI for autonomous targeting of insurgents?

they already have UAV coverage piped down to infantry (or atleast SF) units. a detuned javelin missile guided with a laser spot or even a anti material rifle / SHIPON LAW could have sufficed :rotfl:

after this moth is swatted down with a badminton racquet, a B52 will level the whole village anyway, killing 300 people - so much for collateral damage.
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Post by Austin »

Israel looks to make unmanned systems harder to destroy
New sensors designed to detect unmanned air systems and weapon systems aimed at shooting them down will force UAS manufacturers to make their products harder to destroy, Israeli sources say.

Russia has already embarked on an effort to develop radar systems capable of detecting even small UAS, and Israeli sources say the technology's potential spread means methods of protecting current and future air vehicles will be required.

No specific details about such an effort have emerged yet, but it seems likely that future large UAS will be required to carry more electronic countermeasures equipment. For smaller systems, another option would be to operate "swarms" of aircraft to enable some to penetrate a defended area.

"The proliferation of UAS in the world and the increasing variety of missions they perform has brought an effort to handle the threat as if it is a manned aerial platform," one source notes.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by member_20453 »

I appreciate the info on the AURA UCAV but everything made in India is not a derivative of something made somewhere else. AURA is a unique design and looks far better than the Neuron. The flying wing concept originated from Nazi era with the Horten bomber, all flying wings in developement today are essentially derivatives of the Horten bomber. :rotfl:
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

Post by Prem Kumar »

Singha: here is a thought. A swarm of such small UCAVs (mini-Harops) can be an effective counter battery device to eliminate enemy artillery. 3 pounds of accurately delivered high explosive can disable a gun & its crew. Since it can be remotely guided, it can target artillery even when its scooting. Perhaps we might need something slightly bigger though - for range and more explosive power.
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Re: UAVs, Drones, Remote Surveillance Tech

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