India's Homegrown Drone Programme Struggles To Take Flight, Two Decades After First Drone Imports

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming visit to the United States, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has approved a proposal to acquire 31 MQ-9B Predator High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAVs for the Indian armed forces.

The drones will provide the forces the much-needed capability to monitor movements of Chinese forces along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) from long range, and the activities of Chinese warships deployed in the Indian Ocean.

However, this development also showcases the failure of the India's military-research-industrial complex in coming up with a functional drone, let alone a medium or a high altitude long endurance variant.

Homegrown UAV Programme

India started its UAV development programme in mid 90s with Nishant.

Defence Research and Development Organisation's (DRDO's) Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) lab was the nodal agency for the UAV's development.

The 380 kilogram UAV was designed for intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance, battle damage assessment, electronic and signal intelligence missions, with a maximum endurance of four hours and 30 minutes.

In parallel, ADE also started the development of a medium altitude long endurance UAV — Rustom-1 — in the early 2000s.

While the Nishant was supposed to be for tactical roles with an endurance of 4-5 hours, the Rustom-1, on the other hand, was supposed to fly to an altitude of 22,000 feet for 12-15 hours.

The first flight of Rustom-1 conducted in 2009, however, ended in embarrassment for the DRDO as the prototype crashed. Similarly, the Nishant UAV programme, which took its first flight 15 years ago (1995) before the embarrassing crash of Rustom-1, also faced troubles.

After spending about a decade and a half in the development of Nishant UAV, the DRDO delivered the first four UAVs to the Indian Army in 2009.

From the initial four Nishant delivered by DRDO to the army, two UAVs crashed just a week (28 and 30 April 2010) into the first user trials at Pokhran range in Jaisalmer. The third UAV crashed in February 2011.

Reportedly, all the crashes occurred due to a technical glitch which started a blame-game between the DRDO and the army.

The DRDO blamed the army for the poor handling of the drone, while the army blamed the DRDO for not sorting out the recovery systems of the drone.

Fed up with the frequent crashes and the lack of accountability by the DRDO, the Indian Army shelved the entire Nishant UAV programme.

“The user has stated that there is no requirement of additional Nishant UAV systems, therefore the phase 2 of the project is closed and no more funds are going to come for this project," the DRDO had then stated in a letter to ADE.

Meanwhile, the Rustom-1 conducted multiple successful test flights in this period.

According to DRDO, Rustom-1 achieved a maximum endurance of 10 hours at an altitude of 20,000 feet. Rustom-1 can be operated to a range of 200 kilometres.

In the meantime, ADE also started the development of an even more ambitious version, called Tapas BH-201 (Tactical Aerial Platform for Advanced Surveillance — Beyond Horizon 201).

The Tapas BH-201 is supposed to have a maximum endurance of 24 hours at an altitude of 35,000 feet. It can be operated using satellite communications from a 1,000 kilometres away.

Its only in 2016 that the Tapas BH-201 conducted its first flight.

The Tapas BH-201 uses two NPO Saturn 36MT turboprop engines of Russian origin in a puller configuration compared to the one-engine pusher configuration of the Rustom-1.

It took another five years (2021) for Tapas to demonstrate an endurance of 18 hours and a flight altitude of 28,000 feet. This is still, however, short of the army's stated requirement.

In July 2022, the government ordered Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to manufacture six Tapas UAVs for evaluation trials, with a delivery date of April 2023. Months later, there is no confirmation on the status of these drones either from the DRDO or the HAL, or from the army.

Comparison With Turkey

Even after spending more than two and a half decades on the UAV programme, India does not have an indigenous, fully operational high altitude long-endurance drone that meets the needs.

On the other hand, the Turkish military-industrial complex has not only delivered but also exported a large amount of UAVs.

Bayraktar TB2 is the most talked about one, famous for its exploits in the Ngorno-Karabakh conflict and most recently in the initial days of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Even more impressive is the speed at which Turkish manufacturer, Baykar Defence, is delivering newer, bigger, and ever more advanced UAVs and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs).

The Turkish industry has, in the span of three years unveiled two UAV programs. In March 2023, Turkey unveiled ANKA-3 stealth UCAV while four months before (December 2022), their jet-powered drone — Kizilelma completed its first flight.

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has also ordered an unknown number of Akinci UCAVs from Turkey, the first deliveries of which the PAF took in April 2023.

India, in the meantime, has to make do with costly imports of Israeli Heron, Heron-TP and Searcher UAVs. The 31 MQ-9B UAVs, that got approved by the DAC, will cost more than $3 billion.

A Silver Lining

Despite all the failures, the story of the Indian drone development programme has a silver lining as well.

The data link and satellite communication for controlling UAVs from beyond line of sight (BLOS), the automatic take-off and landing (ATOL), and the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technologies are all entirely home grown. These technologies will flow into the new UAV development program that DRDO takes up.

With the sweet, tears and toil, and the countless hours spent by DRDO and ADE scientist, India has now completed the development curve.

Private Sector Takes The Lead

While most of the DRDO-led UAV programmes have failed to fructify so far, Indian private drone manufacturers have flourished.

From Ideaforge, the first drone manufacturer to take-off from very high altitude of more than 18,000 feet with their Switch UAV, to Nagastra-1 Loitering munition developed by Nagpur-based Solar Enterprises to the Bengaluru-based NewSpace Research first operational SWARM UAVs, Indian private drone manufacturers have come a long way.

HAL is even working with NewSpace Research to develop solar-powered high-altitude pseudo satellite (HAPS), which can operate at 90,000 feet for 90 days.

HAL and NewSpace Research are also working on a full suite of loyal wingman type drones and loitering munitions, under the Combat Air Teaming Systems (CATS) programme.

It includes, CATS Max, an unmanned Tejas capable of carrying CATS Hunter, a low-observable cruise missile with a strike range of 200 kilometres. CATS Hunter is recoverable by a two-tier parachute system.

Another drone in the CATS programme is the CATS Warrior — is loyal wingman — to Indian Air Force Tejas jets, that carries in its internal weapons bay, ALFA-S SWARM drones, as well.

The Way Forward

After the Tapas UAV successfully demonstrated its long range endurance capabilities, DRDO has started to build on its successes, and is developing armed versions of the Rustom-1, called Archer and an another armed UAV called Archer-NG.

Archer or Short range (SR-UAV-W) is a weaponised variant of Rustom-1 and can carry four anti-tank missiles, while the Archer-NG is a newly-designed MALE armed UAV with an endurance of more than 18 hours at 30,000 feet.

The Indian armed forces have a shown willingness to initially acquire 76 production variant of Tapas BH-201. Indian Army will operate 60, IAF will operate 12, and Indian Navy will operate 4.

While the indigenous drone programmes have faced serious challenges and setbacks, one hopes that the ADE, DRDO and the whole military-research-industrial complex after overcoming the technological curve, are able to deliver the drones within specified timelines.

Furthermore, the emergence of Indian private drone manufacturers showcases a promising trend in the country's drone industry.

With ongoing collaborations between HAL and NewSpace Research and the development of advanced UAVs under the combat air teaming systems (CATS) programme, India aims to become even more self-reliant in drone production.