US and INDIA to develop Air Launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
The world is entering into a new era of warfare, traditional weapons and techniques are losing their significance gradually. The weapons, aircrafts, air defence systems, artillery guns, everything is being more modern, automatic and unmanned. The main reason behind that is avoiding human casualties during any armed conflict. And defence equipment which is being more and more significant in the defence sector are 'Drones'. Drones are lightweight, drones are unmanned, drones are automatic, drones are affordable. Drones have everything which makes it very relevant in the current scenario. They can attack, they can defend and even they can do surveillance. Looking at the increasing importance of drones recently India and US signed a very important agreement for cooperation in the development of Air-Launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (ALUAV).
Today many countries are extensively using Drones for their military operations all around the world, we saw how the US used it in Afghanistan for carrying out strikes on terrorists and even last year we saw how Turkish made drones changed the destiny of Azerbaijan in the war with Armenia. Despite having lots of qualities, Drones have a huge drawback too, and that is its range is very small. They cannot fly for many hours or for thousands of kilometres like Fighter Aircrafts. One possible solution for this could be that if we develop a technology to launch a drone mid air through a fighter aircraft.
Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), a organisation formed by US and India together, the main aim of DTTI is to bring sustained leadership focus to promote collaborative technology exchange and create opportunities for co-production and co-development of future technologies for Indian and US military forces. DTTI put this proposal of developing ALUAV in front of both countries and both parties agreed and signed an agreement for the same. The pact falls under the ambit of the Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation (RDT&E) agreement between the two sides that was first signed in 2006 and renewed in January 2015.
"The PA outlines the collaboration between Air Force Research Laboratory, Indian Air Force, and Defence Research and Development Organisation towards design, development, demonstration, testing and evaluation of systems to co-develop an ALUAV prototype," the ministry.
The Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) of DRDO will work with Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) of US to develop the technology of launching the drone from a fighter aircraft and more importantly bringing it back to the aircraft after carrying out the operation. The US has already been working on this technology and joining with the USA's this project will be a huge boost for India as this will strengthen our defence ties with the US and once this technology gets fully developed many Indian companies can also manufacture such drones in India. Many countries like France, China and Russia are already working on this technology but right now the US is way ahead of others which is also very great for us. And signing of this agreement will open doors for many future defence manufacturing agreements between the two countries which is a huge boost for our developing defence manufacturing industry.
