DRDO hands over seven indigenous defence technologies to armed forces

From a long-life seawater battery system for sustained underwater sensing and surveillance applications to a waterjet propulsion system for fast interceptor craft, the DRDO has handed over seven technologies to the armed forces, the government said on Friday.

These technologies have been developed under the Technology Development Fund (TDF) scheme, the defence ministry said.

"Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has handed over seven technologies developed under the Technology Development Fund (TDF) scheme to the three Services," it said in a statement.

"The technologies are -- an indigenous high-voltage power supply for airborne self-protection jammers, a tide-efficient gangway for naval jetties, advanced very low frequency-high frequency switching matrix systems, VLF loop aerials for underwater platforms, indigenous waterjet propulsion system for fast interceptor craft, a novel process for recovery of lithium precursors from used lithium-ion batteries and a long-life seawater battery system for sustained underwater sensing and surveillance applications," the ministry said.

Each of these technologies or products has been designed, developed and "extensively tested" by the Indian industry with close collaboration and guidance of DRDO's domain experts and the tri-services, "reinforcing the scheme's focus on import substitution and critical technology development", it said.

The technologies were handed over during the meeting of the Empowered Committee of DRDO held at DRDO Bhawan here on December 2 under the chairmanship of Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman of DRDO, Samir V Kamat.

Senior representatives from the armed forces, Department of Defence Production and the DRDO also attended the meeting.

The Committee undertook detailed discussions on a wide spectrum of project proposals and approved 12 new projects spanning across strategic, aerospace, naval and electronic warfare technologies, the ministry said.

"These approvals underscore the continued focus on building domestic capability and reducing dependency on foreign technologies in critical and emerging technology areas," it said.

The Committee discussed the approval approach for various categories of projects under the TDF and emphasised the need for expediting the end-to-end processing of the scheme's projects to ensure timeliness and alignment with evolving strategic and technological requirements of the Services.

The Committee also deliberated upon the roadmap of successfully developed technologies and the ways which the subsequent acquisition process needs to be streamlined and executed seamlessly.

It recommended important policy alignment and enabling mechanisms to ensure faster induction and operational deployment of the developed technologies, the ministry said.

Addressing the participants, the chairman of the DRDO reaffirmed the government's commitment to strengthening indigenous defence innovation under the vision of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' through faster execution of the TDF scheme.