India’s First Defence Dome system “Indrajaal”

Context:

• Grene Robotics, a Hyderabad based company has developed an indigenous autonomous drone defence dome called Indrajaal.
• Indrajaal is an autonomous defence weapon system that uses technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, cyber security and robotics to identify and counter threats.
• It is India’s first 100 percent indigenous unified, distributed and wide-area Autonomous Drone Defense Dome.
• Each system is capable of protecting a large area of 1000 to 2000 sq. km against threats from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs and incoming weapons.
• It has gained significance as Jammu Air Base on June 27th was attacked by UAVs to drop explosives next to the Mi-17 hangar. 
• The ANTI-UAV systems will not only provide protection to defence bases but it will be beneficial for linear infrastructures like international borders against advanced weaponry.
• Indrajaal is a paradigm shift in the drone warfare system including Low Radar cross-section (RCS) threat warfare.

Low Radar cross-section (RCS): Low RCS includes ammunitions, rockets as well as drones fired from the enemy territory to target the other side.

Key features of Indrajaal

• Real-time situational awareness.
• Integrated and Intelligent meshed network.
• Integrated all current weapons suite and infrastructure.
• Honeycombed cell structure is seamlessly built.
• Synergic combination of 9-10 technologies.
• 24×7 persistent and autonomous monitoring, action and tracking.

Why it Need:

Drones, in the recent times, are emerging as the new form of warfare by the enemy side and if a nation has to be prepared for this new weapon of war, then the strata of air defence have to be looked at, separately.

• As drone threats are unconventional, the counter-attack should also be unconventional, for which a separate set of weapons, a separate set of sensors and separate tactics are required.
• manual weapons and point-based defence systems can’t fight modern warfare, which is driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics and for which the development of Indrajaal was critical.
• As drones are now commercialised and easily available for common use, they pose a new challenge on the security front.

Technology behind Indrajaal

• Considered as the 3rd revolution of warfare, the design principles of Indrajaal are based on delivering autonomy to the armed forces. 
• The synergic combination of 9-10 modern technologies helmed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and robotics.

What are UAVs/Drones?

• The term “drone” usually refers to any unpiloted aircraft.
• Drones are more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned aircraft systems (UASes).
• These robotic UAVs operate without a pilot on board and with different levels of autonomy. 
• A drone’s autonomy level can range from remotely piloted (a human controls its movements) to advanced autonomy, which means that it relies on a system of sensors and LIDAR detectors to calculate its movement.

Significance:

The development of Indrajaal is gaining importance in the backdrop of the recent attack by suspected drones on the Indian Air Force base at Jammu.

Source: Hindu Business Line