Kadet Defence Systems to develop India's first tactical UAV
Indian unmanned air vehicle manufacturer, Kadet Defence Systems is developing a Tactical UAV with an eye on mining and prospecting uses and military and homeland security applications. The company says negotiations are under way with an undisclosed country for using the UAV in its mineral exploration program.
Christened "UAV Garuda", Avdhesh Khaitan, CEO of Kadet, says we were keen on exploring civilian applications with our products and this development gave us the impetus to develop Garuda. "India should be in the market soon for a tactical UAV in which case we would be able to offer a mature market ready product," he says.
Consolidating from the contract win for its JX2 Aerial Target to be used by the Army Air Defence, this development would aid our efforts to lead in the Indian market with indigenously developed products and would offer a Brigade Commander his personal "eye in the sky", says Khaitan. We are expecting to perform airframe test flights in early December.
The Kolkata based company has selected the popular twin boom design over a large blended wing body design as payload integration is easier. Sea variants of the UAV Garuda shall also be developed with launch and sea recovery capabilities.
UAV Garuda will have an endurance of over 6 hours with a range of 200 Km. Khaitan says the aircraft will be equipped for ISR and also be used as a Primary UAV for its other smaller in development air launched UAV's.
Source: Kadet Defence Systems
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