India to buy domestic C-UAS to protect strategic defence facilities

A screen displaying data from Indrajaal's SkyOS command-and-control platform, which manages C-UAS operations. (Indrajaal)

The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded four contracts with a combined worth of INR1 billion (USD11.1 million) to Hyderabad-based defence company Indrajaal to procure its counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UASs) for the Indian Navy and the Indian Army, Janes has learnt.

An Indrajaal spokesperson told Janes on 9 January that the company will be supplying its Indrajaal Infra C-UASs under the four MoD contracts.

“While specific locations cannot be shared, the Indrajaal Infra will be deployed at naval ports on the western seaboard, protecting maritime assets and naval infrastructure. It will also be deployed along the eastern border by the Indian Army to protect strategic bases,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added, “There is an urgency for these [Indrajaal Infra] systems. So we will be delivering 50% of the systems by the end of March, and complete the rest of the deliveries by the end of June.”

The Indrajaal Infra C-UAS is powered by the company's artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled SkyOS command-and-control (C2) platform, the spokesperson said. SkyOS integrates sensors and countermeasures to enable system operation with minimal human input, the spokesperson added.

In addition to SkyOS, the key components of Indrajaal Infra are sensors including radars for long-range detection of aerial threats, radio frequency (RF) detectors for identifying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication signatures and command links, and direction finders; soft-kill capabilities including cyber takeover to seize control of a UAV and bring it down, RF jamming to break C2 links, and global navigation satellite services (GNSS) spoofers and jammers; and hard-kill capabilities including interceptor UAVs such as the company's Zombee UAV, the spokesperson said.