COUNTER-DRONE TECHNOLOGIES: NASCENT, BUT WITH ENORMOUS POSSIBILITIES

Designing and developing new countermeasures will require substantial investments, but they should not be hindrances in innovation, writes R CHANDRAKANTH

- R CHANDRAKANTH

With belligerent neighbours on the northern and western fronts, India has no other option but to equip its armed forces with not just the necessary arms and ammunition, but also with signal intelligence (sigint), electronic intelligence (elint), communication intelligence (comint) and the conventional human intelligence (humint). And unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones of all sizes which fall into the first two categories have become an essential part of the arms stockpile as they not only are deployed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) roles but also in combat duties that may include destroying flying objects.

In the background of frequent skirmishes along the borders, the dispensation at the centre has been buying quite a number of drones (India accounted for 22.5 percent of global imports between 2008 and 2014). It placed orders for Heron from Israel and also mini drones from the USA, besides the two Predator drones which the Indian Navy has got on lease. Recently, the Indian Army awarded a $20 million deal to IdeaForge for an undisclosed number of the advanced version of Switch tactical drones, for operation in high altitude regions. This indeed will beef up India’s ISR capabilities. This is a welcome move. However, one must keep in mind that drones are easily available in the global market and one of the major manufacturers and suppliers is China. That obviously means the enemy has enough and more drones to be deployed for ISR and other rogue activities, though there have not been reports of any deployment of combat UAVs.