The future of military drone development in India can be pushed forward provided there is sustained effort by the government, the armed services, the DRDO and industry
Earlier this year, the Modi government’s announcement that India will purchase 31 MQ9-B Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAVs), also known as Predators, developed by the United States’ (US) General Atomics (GA), came as a shot in the arm for the Indian armed forces. The Indian Navy (IN) will get 15 naval variants of the MQ9 UAVs dubbed the Sea Guardians for maritime missions, whereas the Indian Army (IA) and the Indian Air Force (IAF) will get eight each dubbed the Sky Guardian. These UAVs will be dedicated to Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions for monitoring India’s extensive land frontiers.
The Indian Navy (IN) will get 15 naval variants of the MQ9 UAVs dubbed the Sea Guardians for maritime missions, whereas the Indian Army (IA) and the Indian Air Force (IAF) will get eight each dubbed the Sky Guardian.
The Reapers are primarily geared for ISR missions, but they can also perform strike missions, and the ones being purchased by India are multirole. It is, however, for their ISR missions that the three services of the Indian military are purchasing them. The MQ9s are equipped with a whole menu of capabilities as a result of being High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAVs with 40 hour loiter time or time on station, with an altitude ceiling that exceeds 40 thousand feet, and a range of 11,112 kilometres (kms). They are also satellite communications (SATCOM)-enabled, which makes the Reapers even more potent. The 31 MQ9-Bs will certainly enhance the ISR capabilities of the three services and will become one of the few consequential capital acquisitions made by the current Modi government, even if this purchase is not consistent with the government’s flagship Atma Nirbhar Bharat (ANB) initiative geared towards investing, developing, and producing native militarily capable drones for the three service branches of the Indian military.
All the factors mentioned above outweighed whatever capabilities the Tactical Airborne Platform for Air Surveillance (TAPAS), India’s native Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone, could bring to the armed forces. Specifically with regards to the Indian indigenous UAV programme, there are several deficiencies that plague it. The developmental cycle for the TAPAS was, and is, turning out to be more protracted. Launched under the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2011, the TAPAS development continued under the successor Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. The deadline for its development was 2016—the year it underwent its first test flight. But it was consumed by excessive development time and cost overruns, after its initial launch was pegged at a price of INR 1,650 crores or roughly US$ 200 million. By early January of 2024, the revised costs surged to INR 1,786 crores or US$ 215 million, which might not seem excessive, but when paired with the long development time, the results have been inadequate. A 13-year development programme has produced sub-optimal results.
The TAPAS underwent tests before the armed services and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) proceeded to acquire the MQ9s.
A key technical deficiency of the TAPAS drone is its engine, which is a fundamental weakness plaguing other Indian aircraft development programmes such as the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). As Director of the public sector Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) Y. Dilip observed, “Primarily, we were constrained by the engines”. A combination of these variables compelled the armed forces to turn to General Atomics (GA), the maker of the MQ9s, for the supply of 31 UAVs. Compounding the engine deficiency issue is the TAPAS’ lack of several capabilities, which includes endurance that matches the MQ9-Bs, lack of a SATCOM-enabled capability, and a more limited altitude ceiling. The TAPAS underwent tests before the armed services and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) proceeded to acquire the MQ9s. Earlier this year, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has had to close the TAPAS as a “mission-mode” project.
Regardless of the merits of purchasing the MQ9-Bs, the defence establishment should not be discouraged by the underperformance of the TAPAS and its failure to meet the qualitative requirements of the armed services. Thanks to the IAF and IN, the TAPAS is being revived despite its technological deficiencies. The IAF sees the TAPAS, notwithstanding its lack of endurance, worth improving on progressively, which it seeks to deploy along the Line of Actual Control (LaC). The IN too has tested the maritime variant of the TAPAS off the coast of Karnataka. Over a year ago, the naval version of the UAV was tested with a Command-and-Control Centre (C&CC) established on the warship INS Subhadra. Following a 40-minute flight at an altitude of 20,000 feet for three-and-a-half hours monitored by the control centre aboard the INS Subhadra, the navalised version of the TAPAS returned to its home base at Chitradurga in Karnataka. So far, the TAPAS has undergone over 200 flight tests and has fared well as a MALE UAV and helps plug gaps in the IAF and IN’s ISR capabilities.
Despite the Modi government’s ANB initiative, the push to sustain the TAPAS programme has come from the former two service branches of the Indian military.
Nevertheless, unlike the IAF and the IN, the Indian Army (IA) has remained the holdout amongst the three services in opposing the TAPAS. Despite the Modi government’s ANB initiative, the push to sustain the TAPAS programme has come from the former two service branches of the Indian military. This is a shot in the arm for the TAPAS. The IAF and the IN have reposed faith in incremental improvements without impulsively abandoning the pursuit of a native military drone, as was the case with other promising native military projects in the past.
More recently, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has warned against both private sector enterprises and government-run entities like the DRDO sourcing drone parts from the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) for military UAVs. Nevertheless, private industry still relies on Chinese supplied spares. Indeed, Sameer Joshi, the founder of the Bengaluru-based NewSpace Research and Technologies, which is amongst the most well-known private drone companies, observed: “70% of goods in the supply chain were made in China”. Shifting to non-Chinese sources for spares, as Joshi averred, has driven up costs significantly and has delayed the completion of drone programmes.
The TAPAS may have the support of the IAF and IN, but more broadly the domestic drone industry is heavily compromised by its dependence on spares and components from China. India confronts a trade-off—allow spares for military drones in particular to be sourced exclusively from non-Chinese sources, especially from native industry, thereby driving up costs and prolonging development time, or in a bid to keep procurement costs low for UAV components, allow the security of its drones to be compromised in key areas such as camera functions, communications, radio transmission and software security that are vital to military operations. Indeed, one senior MoD official captured it aptly, “If today, I buy equipment from China but I say I want to make it in India, the cost will go up 50%. We, as a nation, need to be ready to help the ecosystem build here.” The latter is likely to take time and money.
The setbacks and underperformance of India’s native military UAV programme will need to be addressed with greater vigour on other fronts.
In addition, the setbacks and underperformance of India’s native military UAV programme will need to be addressed with greater vigour on other fronts. It will need greater involvement of India’s defence companies and start-ups in the private sector to produce concrete results. The TAPAS has been an exclusively DRDO-led effort, it might be wise to consider generating some competition with two entities vying or competing for the development of TAPAS-like UAVs in the future. This would equally apply for future India HALE UAV capabilities. For instance, it could be the DRDO and a private sector company who can lead the effort. This would require the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to invite bids by the DRDO and private sector companies, with careful vetting by MoD and technical teams from the armed services of the private sector companies to determine which company should get the contract to develop two parallel MALE UAV systems. Also, private sector companies need to take some risks as well as incur costs and make internal investments in R&D to develop drones natively.
Although there is not a single Indian drone that can be considered militarily worthy, particularly along the crucial metrics of 30 plus hours of endurance, there is no reason to feel completely bleak about the future of military drone development in India, provided there is sustained effort by the government, the armed services, the DRDO and industry.
Kartik Bommakanti is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Kartik Bommakanti is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme. Kartik specialises in space military issues and his research is primarily centred on the ...
Read More +
PREV
