India plans to develop solar-powered UAVs

[SpArK]

India plans to develop solar-powered UAVs
​

New Delhi: India is planning to develop solar-powered unmanned flying machines with the capability of remaining airborne for at least a month in all weather conditions.

"We are looking forward to develop solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a long range and endurance capability as we plan to diversify our expertise in UAV technology," Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) spokesperson Ravi Gupta said.

The one-of-its-kind UAV will be designed and developed to endure long-range sorties ranging up to a month in all weather conditions, Gupta said.

The flying machine will have specially-designed solar panels to keep it airborne even in nights and cloudy weather conditions with the help of power generated and saved during the day.

Keeping in mind the payload that would be fitted on these UAVs and the nature of missions, special attention would be paid to keep their frame light but strong enough to endure different weather conditions.

The UAV would be capable of providing real-time information and data of the area through a secure data link, DRDO officials said.

The Rustom-1 UAV, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), can remain airborne for 24 to 36 hours while Nishant has the capability to remain airborne for nearly five hours.

These UAVs can carry a variety of cameras to look deep into the enemy territory for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes.

Besides the armed forces, paramilitary personnel engaged in anti-Naxal operations are also looking forward to procure UAVs to snoop deep into forests inhabited by Left-wing extremists.



Read more at: India plans to develop solar-powered UAVs

 

[IndianArmy]

Planning... Man we are good at it.. !! , Dont forget to Wake me up when they have come out of there planning!!

 

[angeldemon_007]

Hey Spark isn't this an old news ? I think they should team up with Boeing.

 

[tvsram1992]

Planning... Man we are good at it.. !! , Dont forget to Wake me up when they have come out of there planning!!

Can you sleep for decades?

 

[IndianArmy]

Can you sleep for decades?

I will try to, if it is promised to be finished at least in a decade.

 

[OrionHunter]

Why just UAVs? Why not UCAVs?

 

[IndianArmy]

Why just UAVs? Why not UACVs?

Its not so easy to create a machine to carry such loads just on a solar boost. Needs technology, needs money and needs Americans.

 

[OrionHunter]

Its not so easy to create a machine to carry such loads just on a solar boost. Needs technology, needs money and needs Americans.

Americans? Jeeez! I didn't know that!

 

[IndianArmy]

Americans? Jeeez! I didn't know that!

Now that you know I guess.

 

[SpArK]

Americans? Jeeez! I didn't know that!

Yup yup..Amreeka..

Stratospheric UAV Systems: An Eye (Way Up) in the Sky

WASHINGTON -- The new generation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, will behave more like satellites than airplanes. They’ll come in strange shapes and sizes and could fly forever…or at least until operators decided to crash them into the ocean.

These airships will be solar powered and could fly months or years above the jet stream between 60,000 and 70,000 feet, Ed Herlik, a lead analyst at Market Intel Group, said today at the AUVSI 2011 symposium in Washington, D.C. And because of their design for long endurance missions, they aren’t made with any conventions for landing.

Herlik led a discussion on stratospheric UAV payload applications for both defense and commercial industries at the symposium, which began today and goes for several days.

“We knew how to fly these things in 2007, and they would have stopped the IED threat. Flying at those altitudes you can see a whole bunch of stuff,” Herlik said.

Higher altitude flights allow for a wider area of surveillance. It would take 13 Predators or at least 4 Global Hawks to get the same amount of continuous ground coverage a stratospheric UAV could cover, he said. He predicts that in the text 10 years, money being spent on mid-sized UAV’s will eventually be rerouted to add these crafts to military fleets.

Continuous monitoring provided by a stratospheric UAV flying over a city would create a record of an attack that could be reviewed to yield information that would retrace a attacker’s footsteps backwards to where he originally came from.

One craft in development by DARPA looks like a giant blimp. Having one stationed over Baghdad “would provide total airspace knowledge and unprecedented ground vehicle tactical tracking across more than 80 percent of Iraq,” a 2008 DARPA report states.

Other UAVs look more like NASA’s Helios prototype aircraft – which looks more like a flying solar panel than an airplane. Helios reached more than 96,000 feet in a test flight before it broke apart in flight after 40 hours.

Other defense applications for stratospheric UAVs include complete communications coverage over a wide area for troops on the ground, signals intelligence, and a supplement to the U.S. missile defense system.
Commercially, Herlik said the systems could be an answer to LightSquared’s proposed plan for complete North American broadband coverage.

“It would take them 40 thousand towers for [broadband coverage of] the contiguous United States. It would take 73 of these. I don’t think LightSquared is going to make it, frankly,” Herlik said.

But these craft will face their own regulatory hurdles. Because of FAA regulations, it may be a while before the airships are allowed to fly commercially in the United States. However, Herlik states the view that once foreign markets pick them up, the U.S. will follow.

“In India and Brazil, they will take the technology, and they will start flying it, and then the commercial vehicle will come from overseas to here when the cell companies and Internet companies demand those foreign vehicles fly over here," he said.

For now, business developers are focusing on the defense industry, because "that's where the money is," he said.

The AUVSI 2011 symposium began Tuesday and will continue through Friday at the Walter E. Washington Convention center in Washington.


Stratospheric UAV Systems: An Eye (Way Up) in the Sky | Security Management

 

[Kinetic]

Planning... Man we are good at it.. !! , Dont forget to Wake me up when they have come out of there planning!!

Do you know what is wrong with us? We expect too much!!!! We have a military budget much less than other country, with much much less R&D spending and less industry support but we want next generation UCAV, FMBT, nuclear submarines, submarine launched ICBM, missile defence, aircraft carrier, AWACS everything which only US can afford. But there is no or less money to be spent on R&D.

 

[IndianArmy]

Do you know what is wrong with us? We expect too much!!!! We have a military budget much less than other country, with much much less R&D spending and less industry support but we want next generation UCAV, FMBT, nuclear submarines, submarine launched ICBM, missile defence, aircraft carrier, AWACS everything which only US can afford. But there is no or less money to be spent on R&D.

Who says R&D efforts cannot match that of US with the amount of money we pour into. It is easy if it is correctly systematized. Our Industries are a complete kayos running to get orders over order's un-realizing the potentiality of its industrial base and at last bring to us a product which would go obsolete in the coming ages.

India has always been asked to focus on technology not the product. Invest the R&D into core technologies and bring us an innovative product which is yet to see light elsewhere. Its just a distant dream and we know that.

 

[SpArK]

Who says R&D efforts cannot match that of US with the amount of money we pour into. It is easy if it is correctly systematized. Our Industries are a complete kayos running to get orders over order's un-realizing the potentiality of its industrial base and at last bring to us a product which would go obsolete in the coming ages.

India has always been asked to focus on technology not the product. Invest the R&D into core technologies and bring us an innovative product which is yet to see light elsewhere. Its just a distant dream and we know that.

And most importantly, dont mess around people ( read scientists) in various projects and make the institution work like a government office.

Induce professionalism and provide result oriented/ time specific globally competitive pay scales.

 

[Hindustani]

Awesome development. Best of luck to DRDO

 

[Kinetic]

Who says R&D efforts cannot match that of US with the amount of money we pour into. It is easy if it is correctly systematized. Our Industries are a complete kayos running to get orders over order's un-realizing the potentiality of its industrial base and at last bring to us a product which would go obsolete in the coming ages.

India has always been asked to focus on technology not the product. Invest the R&D into core technologies and bring us an innovative product which is yet to see light elsewhere. Its just a distant dream and we know that.

US R&D also systematized and optimized. What is the R&D spending of US, China, Japan, Germany, UK, France and India? India cannot be compared with any of them! though India developed nuclear submarine, stealth frigate, ICBM, missile defence, aircraft carrier, AWACS, radars, sonars, EW and many more. But no system cannot replace money.


The amount of money US spent on missile defence in a year or two is equal to more than entire defence R&D of India in last 15 years. But we want them to develop everything and on time with very less support from private industry and foreign sanctions!!! Holy cow!!!


The only way the afford to make those high tech weapons in such scenario is this...

Praying to the God