DRDO carries out test flight of autonomous UAV

DRDO carries out test flight of autonomous UAV

Subject: Science and Technology

Section: Defence

Context: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully carried out the maiden test flight of a new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), an autonomous Flying Wing Technology Demonstrator, from the Aeronautical Test Range, Chitradurga, Karnataka.

Concept:

• Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is a reduced sized autonomous aircraft and is proving various technologies for autonomous aircraft to be built in future
• The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is powered by a small turbofan engine
• The engine is Russian TRDD-50MT originally designed for cruise missiles. “A small turbo fan engine is being developed indigenously for meeting the requirement
• The UAV was designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bengaluru, a premier research laboratory of DRDO
• Operating in a fully autonomous mode, the aircraft exhibited a perfect flight, including take-off, way point navigation and a smooth touchdown
• DRDO is in the process of developing UAVs of different classes to met the requirements of the armed forces
• Rustom-2, the indigenous Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV under development, had crossed a milestone by reaching an altitude of 25,000 feet and an endurance of 10 hours in December 2021 and is being designed to reach an altitude of 30,000 feet and 18 hours endurance

DRDO:

• It is the R&D wing of Ministry of Defence
• DRDO was formed in 1958 from the amalgamation of the then already functioning Technical Development Establishment (TDEs) of the Indian Army and the Directorate of Technical Development & Production (DTDP) with the Defence Science Organization (DSO)
• Its vision is to empower the nation with state of the art indigenous Defence technologies and systems