Aero India: DRDO hands over Nischant

The Indian Army has accepted the Nishant multi-mission UAV following a series of confirmatory endurance trials.

At Aero India 2011 in Bangalore from 9-13 February the Defence Research and Development Organisation's (DRDO) Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) displayed a Nishant UAV.

Successful flight trials of the Nishant's systems were conducted by the Indian Army at Chandan Range Pokharan in western India. ADE is ready to deliver one complete system composed of four Nishant UAVs.

Orders for 11 more systems for the army are expected in due course. The Nishant's primary roles are battlefield reconnaissance, border surveillance, target tracking/localisation and artillery fire correction, tasks it conducts by day or night thanks to its US-manufactured daylight TV camera and FLIR. The electro-optical system can detect trucks at a maximum range of 5km, and people at 2.5km.

One advantage of the Nishant is its ability to launch and land without a prepared runway. It is launched by a mobile hydropneumatic launcher (MHPL), and is recovered via parachutes and landing bags.

A single Nishant system is transported in a family of nine Tatra 8x8 trucks that provide a high degree of mobility. The Nishant can thus be quickly deployed to where it is needed - along the Chinese or Pakistani border, for example. Likewise, the UAV could be used in the aftermath of natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Directed from a truck-mounted ground control station (GCS), or programmed to fly autonomously, the Nishant has an endurance of 4.5 hours and payload link range of 100km. Manufactured from composite materials, the 4.63m-long Nishant fuselage offers a low radar signature. A locally developed 55hp Wankel rotary engine powers it to a cruising speed of 150km/h up to a ceiling of 3,600m, an altitude that must be considered inadequate for much of India's mountainous regions.

Meanwhile, at Aero India the DRDO also displayed the Rustom-1 MALE UAV.

The technology demonstrator is based on an American Rutan Long-EZ airframe, and is powered by a 160hp Lycoming O-320 engine. The Rustom-1 prototype first took to the air at Hosur Airfield on 16 October 2010 during a 12 minute flight.

By the end of February, a 30-minute flight with a mock payload is planned for the first time. ADE is using the Rustom-1 as a stepping stone to the creation of the much more sophisticated Rustom-H.

‘The experience gained through developing Rustom-1 will help generate a genuine dedicated MALE platform that will be flying in less than two years,' an ADE spokesman said.

The Rustom-H will be significantly larger, carry a much bigger payload (75kg), and have a greater endurance (15 hours) and higher service ceiling (25,000 feet) than the Nishant. It is destined for reconnaissance and surveillance missions, target acquisition/designation, signals intelligence, battle damage assessment, and communications relay.

The team of approximately 30 technicians began working on the Rustom project four years ago in response to a Ministry of Defence requirement for a wheeled MALE UAV able to carry multiple payloads.

By Gordon Arthur, Bangalore