Indian Army Unveils Indigenously-made Quadcopter UAV

The Indian Army has unveiled a Quadcopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) capable of surveillance and dropping grenades on targets at the Army Technology Seminar 2019.

The UAV has been created by a team of two army soldiers. Originally developed in 2015, the UAV was initially used for surveillance, and was later modified to include the weapon system. It has been recently tested for dropping grenades, ET reported Friday.

The UAV has been used in live operations along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan and counter-terrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir. The drone is important because none of the defense services have armed drones, the report added.

“The Quadcopter can lift three grenades or two kg of payload such as ammunition, IEDs and first aid. We manually control the UAV through a remote control. It can also be used automatically, wherein we feed the coordinates on the laptop and it navigates to the areas and drops the grenade after unpinning it. It also has day and night surveillance,” ET quoted one of the drone’s creators, Sepoy Amrik as saying.

 “88 such innovations have come up in the last one year of which we have identified 60  to be discussed with the industry to move forward with them on further development,” ET quoted General Bipin Rawat as saying, referring to the other exhibits in the seminar.

The Indian Army is seeking a quadcopter-hexacopter combo or the seeker-shooter combat management system. While the quadcopter functions as the seeker to undertake surveillance, the hexacopter carries the payload to engage the target, according to the problem statement. Sources explained that the army is looking at either having the seeker and shooter system together or separate. Some companies have offered single indigenous seeker-shooter system and their demonstrations could be in February, the report stated further.