India has achieved great success in the development of drones. India has conducted the sixth successful flight test of the drone ‘High-Speed Expendable Aerial Target’ on 27 June 2024 from Chandipur Integrated Test Range in Odisha. All ten developmental tests of the Abhyas drone have been completed and now it is ready for production. The Abhyas drone has been designed and developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) of DRDO.
The Abhyas drone is completely indigenous, it has been developed on a small in-line gas turbine engine. Based on the indigenous micro-electro-mechanical system system, this drone has five parts. First its nose cone, second its equipment bay, third fuel tank, fourth air intake bay and fifth tail cone.
The Abhyas drone will be used as a target for the evaluation of several missile systems. At the same time, it can be used as a simulated aircraft if required. Let us tell you that the primary role of the dummy aircraft is to protect the warplanes by deflecting missiles away from the aircraft.
The Abhyas drone has a MEMS based inertial navigation system for navigation along with a flight control computer for guidance and control. It has a laptop based ground control system with which the aircraft can be integrated and can be checked before flight, data recording during flight, replay after and analysis after flight. It has been developed for completely self governing flight.
The polyethylene fitted inside it protects it from all weathers, rain drops and air shocks. The strength of the Abhyas drone, it flies at a speed of 0.5 Mach, can go up to a height of 5 km, can remain stable on the same target for 30 minutes. It is equipped with 2G turn, radar cross section, visual-infrared signature. Due to these features, Abhyas drone can act as a combat as well as a jammer platform and decoy. India is continuously increasing its drone capability because in future only unmanned vehicles are going to prove effective against the enemy.
What is a drone:
The word drone means male bee. It has got this name because it flies exactly like a bee and can also hover at one place by remaining stable. The word drone was first used in the year 1920 for a target aircraft named Fairy Queen. After which this name became popular. The most special thing about the drone is that there is no pilot inside it and it is operated by remote control. For this reason it is also called UAV i.e. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.
There are two categories of drones. The first is UAV i.e. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and the second is UCAV i.e. Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle. UAV is used for surveillance and searching the target, but it does not have the ability to attack. While UCAVs have both surveillance and attack capabilities, and can launch small missiles, bombs and precision-guided munitions.
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