Aerostats: So that Indian Army can watch from above

Realising the importance of securing its own eyes in the sky, India is developing two more aerostats.

The aerostats, which would be designed and developed by the Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE), will be an add-on to the tried-and-tested Akashdeep aerostat.

After Akashdeep—which was successfully tested up to 1-km altitude at Agra—the target altitude for the upcoming aerostats will be 3km and 6km.

The proposed aerostats, which can be used as gap-fillers for radars, are likely to have the capability to carry out surveillance up to a radius of 450km-500km.

Akashdeep has a surveillance capacity of up to 100km.

Apart from the armed forces, the paramilitary forces too can use the aerostat for surveillance activities during night and in low-visibility conditions, apart from having the capability to intercept a variety of communications.

Akashdeep, which was demonstrated at Aero India, 2011, is capable of carrying electro-optic and communication intelligence system (COMINT) payloads for surveillance.

The aerostat’s gimbals, with 360° azimuth freedom, can carry out steering, scanning and tracking with high precision.

The ADRDE, a Defence Research and Development Organisation laboratory based in Agra, would also be making improvement on Akashdeep by improving its fabric and a few other features.

India requires about a dozen aerostats to act as gap-fillers on the border areas and had bought two Israeli EL/M-2083 aerostat radars.

One of them was damaged in 2009 and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India had pulled up the Indian Air Force for the mishap. This damaged aerostat would be made operational only by 2012.