Indian Army to procure tethered UAVs, tank-driving simulators

The Indian Army is procuring 130 tethered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and 19 simulators for training tank drivers, industry sources have disclosed to Janes.

Bangalore-based NewSpace Research and Technologies Pvt Ltd (NRT) secured a contract worth about INR2.5 billion (USD30.23 million) to supply 130 tethered UAVs to the Indian Army, one industry source said on 29 August.

“The contract is part of an emergency procurement, and all UAVs have to be delivered to the Indian Army by August 2024,” the source said.

The tethered UAVs will support the Indian Army's operations related to intelligence collection and surveillance, and enable persistent situational awareness around critical nodes, especially in high-altitude areas, the source added.

When tethered, the UAVs have an endurance of more than six hours, and in the untethered mode they can be operated for more than 45 minutes.

The UAV type to be supplied to the Indian Army is likely a derivative of NRT's Nimbus-scope tethered electric UAV.

The Indian Army has also awarded Hyderabad-based Zen Technologies with a contract to supply 19 tank-driving simulators, another industry source said. The simulators will support the Indian Army's T-72 main battle tanks (MBTs) and will primarily be used to train engineers.

According to company specifications, the T-72 DS driving simulator is containerised for easy transportation but can also be delivered as a fixed installation if required. The network-enabled simulator is designed for basic and advanced training.

Each simulator unit consists of a driver station, an instructor station, and a six degrees-of-freedom electric motion platform to provide a realistic feel when encountering rotation and translation movements.

In 2017 Zen Technologies was contracted to supply a total of 104 T-72 DS and T-90 DS systems to the Indian Army.