The Indian Army has recently signed contracts for the procurement of 130 tethered drones and tank driving simulators under Emergency Procurement (EP).
About the deal:
- The long-endurance tether drone systems will be procured that can also be used in high–altitude areas.
About the tethered drones:
- The tethered drone is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that is tethered to the ground using a cable.
- It consists of a base station on the ground and the drone, which is connected to the station using a tether or cable.
- 3 distinct components: drone, multirotor UAV (especially quadcopters), cable
- It can be operated remotely to perform specific tasks.
- Drone tethers typically provide up to a few hundred metres of operational altitude, where the limiting factor is the ability of the drone to support the weight of the tether.
- Drone tethers may be made of aramid or other lightweight synthetic materials to provide strength, with copper for power conduction and optical fibre for data and communications.
Advantages of tethered drones:
- It is more secure and less susceptible to interference than wireless signals, and cannot be jammed like Radio Frequency signals.
- It can be used as part of long-range communications relays to create temporary networks for cellular, radio and broadband internet signals.
- It can be fitted with payloads including cameras for real-time streaming, radio repeaters and environmental sensors.
- It reduces technical and human error crashes in flight and does not require GPS navigation.
- It has longer flight times as compared to a free-flying, battery-operated drones.
About the Driving simulators:
- The Driving simulators are computer-aided kinematic and dynamic simulations that are used to train the driver of any vehicle in an artificial environment.
- They are also used for research purposes to monitor driver behaviour, performance, and attention and to evaluate new vehicles or new advanced driver assistance systems.
Other key facts:
- Army had earlier contracted drones that can hit targets with 5-10 kg explosives from a startup which is also developing drone swarms.
Ref: Source
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