Adding to the security measures taken as part of India’s Independence Day Celebrations on Sunday, a Counter Drone Technology developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was installed to monitor the Red Fort and its surrounding area. The system, installed to monitor the Red Fort and its surrounding area, has the ability to detect and deactivate drones of any size within a radius of 4 kilometers.
Sharing detailed information about the creation of this technology, DRDO scientist Bharat Bhushan Kataria said that ‘this technology is the result of the thinking of Dr Satheesh Reddy, Chairman of DRDO. “It was he who started the effort towards developing such technology. Mainly based on D4 technology that is Drone, Detect, Deter and Destroy, this system has been jointly made by four labs of DRDO, LRDE, IRDE, DLRL, and CHESSS under the leadership of Dr Chandrika Kaushik,” said Kataria.
“Its radar covers an area of 360 degrees up to 4 kilometers. It has a high-resolution camera, through which we see the object. This system is effective on all types of drones. It takes only 15 to 20 seconds to disable any drone in any way. This technology was developed as an anti-missile defence system. The laser beam in it moves at the speed of light. Keeping this in view, as soon as we see an object, it takes only a few seconds to destroy it with a laser beam at this speed. It can remain in operation 24*7,” he added.
It is worth noting that for some time there has been a steady increase in the incidents of drone strikes or infiltration by anti-national forces in an area. In such a situation, the challenges before the security agencies have increased manifold. In view of this, this technology is very important. Giving information about the operation of this technology, Colonel Abhishek Srivastava, Additional Director, DRDO said, “This Counter Drone Technology which has been developed by DRDO has 4 parts. It has a radar that can locate any micro drone from 4 kilometres. The nano drones that are there can detect them with a radius of 2 kilometres. After that, it has Radio Frequency Jammer and GNSS Jammer. The third part is the system of laser-based articles. The fourth part is an integrated system of softkill and hardkill.”
“If an article is aiming at you and if your radar is on, the radar can catch even the smallest of particles. After this, it hands over the target to the integrated system. In this way, if you have seen a target, you can confirm it and neutralize it. Because its control command link RF Based it will be useless. The battery will run out. It also has a GPS jammer, so that it gets lost,” he added.
Colonel Srivastava further said, “There are many big radars, which have the ability to track objects up to 100 kilometres, 150 kilometres, 300-500 kilometres. But, with those radars, you cannot track small objects. We developed its radar, jammer in such a way that even the smallest of particles can be detected. Its accuracy is 100 per cent.”
This is the fourth time that Counter Drone Technology has been used to make the security system tighter.
“Earlier it was used in Ahmedabad during the visit of then US President Donald Trump to India last year, followed by Independence Day last year and also during this year’s Republic Day celebrations. It has certainly helped in dealing with any conspiracy to sabotage the security system through nano or micro-drones,” said Srivastava
