EADS offers to co-develop AESA radars with DRDO

New Delhi: European aerospace and defence major, EADS, has offered to co-develop with India the technology for active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for installation on board the indigenously developed, light combat aircraft Tejas. The offer has been made even as US aerospace giants, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, are awaiting clearance from the US Congress to offer a transfer of technology (ToT) agreement to India for the same technology.

Talking to the media persons, EADS CEO, Stefan Zoller said, ''We have offered to co-develop the AESA e-copter radars with DRDO-LRDE.''

AESA radars, which are sported by some US frontline fighters like the F-22, help pilots track threats such as cruise missiles. AESA radars can track targets simultaneously in the air and on the ground.

Under India's Defence Procurement Policy (DPP) 2006, ToT agreements for AESA radars is one of the key elements of the request for proposals sent out to six major aerospace and defence companies who are bidding for the $10-billion deal for 126 medium range multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force.

Meanwhile, EADS has said that it has so far ensured coherent delivery of end-to-end services for its military and security customers and is fully engaged in future tactical and infrastructure network projects for the Indian Army.

According to Zoller, ''As an example of its commitment to India, we have delivered to the Indian Army a complete test bed (Parikshak) in order to help it understand the need for the tactical communications system (TCS) project,'' Zoller added.

As the bid opening time for the MMRCA project nears, Eurofighter, one of the contenders for the project, has said that it intends to open an office in New Delhi shortly in order to have local representation during the competition.