Bengaluru: The Army Research and Development Center (TRDO) has achieved a record by piloting the indigenously developed Tapas unmanned aerial vehicle under ground control center and warship control for about three and a half hours.
DRDO has developed an unmanned aerial vehicle called Tapas for military use. DRDO conducted a flight test of it under the control of ground control center and warship on 16th.
For this the Tapas drone was launched from the Aeronautical Test Center (ATR) in Karnataka’s Chitradurga district. The location is 285 km from Karwar Naval Base in Karnataka and 200 km from Bangalore. The warship INS Subatra was deployed 148 km from the Karwar Naval Base to transfer control of the drone from the ground control center to the warship. The Tapas drone took off from the experiment center at Chitradurga at 7.35 am on the 16th and flew for about three and a half hours at an altitude of 20,000 feet.
The aircraft flew under the control of the warship INS Subatra for 40 minutes. For this two ship data terminals were fitted on the warship. After flying for three-and-a-half hours in the sky, the Tapas drone successfully landed at the experiment center in Chitradurga, DRDO said.
The Tapas drone is capable of flying 24 hours at an altitude of 30,000 feet with a SAR radar. It can monitor a distance of 250 km from mid-air. The Tapas unmanned aerial vehicle was developed for reconnaissance and surveillance of security forces. According to DRDO, this aircraft is similar to Israel’s Heron drone.
#WATCH | DRDO and Indian Navy team successfully demonstrated transferring of command & control capabilities of TAPAS UAV from a distant ground station to onboard INS Subhadra, 148km from Karwar naval base on 16 June 2023.
TAPAS took off at 07.35hrs from Aeronautical Test Range… pic.twitter.com/7MfB79W6T0