10 anti-drone systems to be procured by IAF for border protection

After a drone attack at the Indian Air Force (IAF) station in Jammu, the force has decided to procure 10 anti-drone systems to stop such attacks in future in the border areas.

The force has floated a Request for Information (RFI) for Indian vendors for Counter Unarmed Aircraft System (CUAS) that can be armed with laser directed energy weapons to bring down rogue drones.

On June 27, drone attack was carried on the Jammu Air Force Station where two unmanned aerial vehicles were used to drop bombs.

The National Investigation Agency has taken up the probe into the matter.

The RFI stated: “The CUAS is intended to detect, track, identify, designate and neutralize hostile UAS. Laser Directed Energy Weapon (Laser-DEW) is essentially required as a kill option.”

It stated that the systems should be equipped with Global Navigation Satellite Jammer System (GNSS) and Radio Frequency jammers as a soft kill option and Laser-based Directed

Energy Weapon (Laser-DEW) as a hard kill option to destroy the drones.

“It should provide a multi-sensor, multi-kill solution to enforce effective no fly zones for unmanned aircraft while inflicting minimal collateral damage to the surrounding environment. It should generate a composite air situational picture for the operator and generate alerts based on user defined parameters,” the RFI stated.

The Air Force stated that these anti-drone systems are required in mobile configuration mounted on indigenous vehicles with cross country capability and powered by indigenous Electrical Power Supply (EPS) system.