Indigenous UAV Nishant Ready for Indian Army after Successful Trials

• India's 'Nishant' Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is finally ready for the Indian Army after a series of successful flight trials in Rajasthan recently. The Indian Army has taken the delivery of four Nishant UAV's with ground systems and expects to order more in the near future.
• The Nishant UAV has been indigenously designed and developed by the Defence Research & Development Organisation's (DRDO) Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) laboratory. ADE specialises in UAVs, flight control systems and simulators.
• The Nishant UAV will give a decisive edge to the Indian Army in the area of day and night battle-field reconnaissance, surveillance, target tracking and correction of artillery fire. The UAV can also be used for anti-insurgency operations in critical times. The electro-optical, electronic intelligence and communication intelligence payload on-board the Nishant UAV will enable it for an array of operations such as the above-mentioned ones. The Nishant UAV does not need a runway and can be launched from a hydro pneumatic launcher. It will be controlled by the Ground Control Systems mounted on Tatra vehicles. The Nishant UAV has an endurance level of four and a half hours and it can attain maximum speed of over 180 kilometres per hour. The UAV is recovered with the help of parachutes and landing bags.

The Nishant UAV is ADE's first indigenously made Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for the Indian Army and it is a tactical UAV and can be employed in tactical areas. The limited series production is specially prepared for the Indian Army as per their requirements. Other highlights of the UAV include multi-mission day/night capability using advance payloads, jam resistant command link and digital down link. It is a highly mobile, compact and easily deployable system. According to the DRDO, ADE had earlier used the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) technology developed by it along with the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) on the NIshant UAV successfully. The SHM monitors the structural health parameters online while the UAV is in flight and help take corrective action. This enables the UAV to be flown without unnecessarily grounding them for inspection. The analysis algorithms for the SHM were developed to predict onset of failures.