India to develop unmanned combat aerial vehicle: DRDO

Bangalore: Reflecting the diversity of the research and development work undertaken by the country's Defence and Research Development Organisation (DRDO), it has been announced that work will soon start on developing an indigenous unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) which will not only do surveillance work, but also detect and destroy hostile targets.

"We will soon embark on designing and developing an unmanned combat aerial vehicle, which will not only do surveillance, but will also help detect the target and destroy the identified object," VK Saraswat, director general, DRDO and scientific advisor to the defence minister said.

An UCAV differs from ordinary UAVs in that it also attacks the targets that it surveys.

The project will be taken up by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) laboratory in Bangalore and will also involve private industry participation.

"The controls of a combat drone will be rested with multiple command control centres. The centres can be geographically at different locations. Even if one centre becomes defunct, the drone can be controlled and guided by other centres," Saraswat said.

He was speaking on the margins of the fifth national conference on 'NextGen IT for Indian Defence'.