Indian Army In The Market For 12 Drone Swarms, Issues RFI
The Indian Army has initiated the acquisition of 12 armed drone swarms for deployment on its borders, even as reports suggest the imminent induction of loitering munitions in a separate procurement.
A Request for Information was issued by the Army for Autonomous Surveillance and Armed Drone Swarms (A-SADS) on September 28 to be acquired under the Buy Indian - IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured) category of the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) at an estimated cost of Rs 700 Crore.
Each swarm is to comprise 50-75 explosives-laden, artificial intelligence-enabled aerial vehicles capable of vertical take-off and landing and of communicating with control stations as well as among themselves.
Seven of the 12 swarms are meant for deployment along high-altitude borders. The other five are for borders in the desert and the plains.
The RFI stipulates the requirement for Indigenous Content of 50 per cent. The high-altitude swarms are required to have a 30-km operating radius with two-hour endurance and the capability to operate in a Minus 20 Degrees Celsius environment.
Capability requirements for swarm operations in the plains and desert include a 50-km operating radius and an endurance of three hours.
The A-SADS are required with explosive payloads for targeting personnel and “shaped charge top-attack ammunition” to target tanks and armoured columns.
These will, in effect, have a Kamikaze role to target vital points and installations like command-and-control centres, radars, fuel dumps and, air defence sites.
An Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) feature has been stipulated for a quick response and enablement of the command-and-control centre to choose the vector to destroy a target.
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