Comparative_Review_Study_of_Military_and_Civilian_.pdf — page 11

193 
Comparative Review Study of Military and Civilian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) 
 
INCAS BULLETIN, Volume 11, Issue 3/ 2019 
2.8 Indian AUVs capabilities 
Our review of AUV capabilities confirmed the potential of the technology in two areas: - as 
a replacement for conventional ship-bourne hydrographic survey tasks. - as a replacement for 
conventional tethered Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) tasks. We recognised two 
significant limiting factors. Initially, there are the batteries. Limitations in battery power 
restricted either endurance or the sensors that the vehicle could carry. Secondly, there is the 
vehicle navigation and control. Whilst all of the navigation components, in particular inertial 
systems, were available and all of the sensors were in existence, they had not been integrated 
into a commercial autonomous vehicle before. Indian AUVs. As they have similar 
capabilities they were incorporated into active NAVY services in the past [14]. The Maya 
AUV fig. 14 belongs to a class of small autonomous underwater vehicles [13] that have been 
gaining popularity in marine application areas such as oceanography, monitoring the coastal 
environment, as well as in naval applications such as mapping of naval mines for mine 
countermeasures. 
The development of Maya was jointly funded by NIO and the Department of Electronics and 
Information Technology, New Delhi, India (known as the Department of Information 
Technology before 2012). The AUV's development began in 2003, [15] completed 
horizontal plane tests in May 2005, [16] with the first set of dive missions tested on May 12, 
2006, [17] making it India's first indigenously developed AUV for scientific applications. 
AUV-150 (UUV) being developed by Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute 
(CMERI) scientists in Durgapur in the Indian state of West Bengal. The project is sponsored 
by the Ministry of Earth Sciences and has technical assistance from IIT-Kharagpur [21]. The 
vehicle was built with the intent of coastal security like mine counter-measures, coastal 
monitoring and reconnaissance. AUV 150 can be used to study aquatic life, for mapping of 
sea-floor and minerals along with monitoring of environmental parameters, such as current, 
temperature, depth and salinity. It can also be useful in cable and pipeline surveys. It is built 
to operate 150 metres under the sea and have cruising speed of up to four knots. 
2.9 Current Statistics of Indian and Israel UAVs 
In 2009, the Indian Air Force purchased 10 Harops in a $100 million contract with Israel 
Aerospace Industries. In February 2013, the Indian Air Force made a $280 million deal with 
Israel Aerospace Industries for a new series of Heron medium-altitude, long-endurance 
drones. In the two decades that have followed, Indian armed forces have acquired more than 
200 UAVs mostly of Israeli origin. DRDO which had been dabbling with UAV design for 
some time also got in the act and working in collaboration with Indian industry has made 
some progress in creating indigenous capacity. The perceived necessity of close surveillance 
was the original purpose of UAVs [3]. However, sensing enhanced possibilities with 
maturing of relevant technologies at home, Indian armed forces have widened their horizons 
to include them for kinetic action against suitable targets. Therefore, it is entirely possible 
that a future surgical strike across the LOC may well be a precision missile attack executed 
by employing UAVs. Besides a small number of IAF’s HAROP Unmanned Combat Aerial 
Vehicles (UCAV) designed to neutralize radiating targets, currently, Indian armed forces 
have some 200+ Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Searcher and Heron UAVs of 
Israeli origin. Searcher, the smaller of the two is limited both in payload capacity (150 lbs) as 
well as the operational ceiling of (20,000ft.). However, with its abilities to stay aloft for up to 
18 hours and carry a variety of sensors, it has rendered yeoman’s service along the Western 
borders and Indian shores. Heron, the larger of the two MALE UAVs is more versatile. With