Nishant(UAV) Confirmatory Flight Trials Successful | Salient Features of Nishant

Nishant, DRDO’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has successfully completed the series of confirmatory trials conducted by the Indian Army at Chandan Range, Pokharan, recently. Nishant has been designed and developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bengaluru, a DRDO laboratory specialising in UAVs, flight control systems and simulators, in partnership with other DRDO laboratories namely Defence Electronics Applications Laboratory (DEAL), Dehradun; Research and Development Establishment (Engineers) (R&DE(Engrs)), Pune; and Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE), Agra.

Highlights and the salient features of the Nishant are:

• Nishant is capable of being launched from a hydropneumatic launcher, without the need for a runway.
• The launch vehicle can be parked in a safe area and moved to any location for launching whenever required making it versatile.
• The system consists of an air vehicle supported by ‘ground control station’ mounted on ‘Tatra’ vehicles. 
• It has an endurance of up to 4.5 h and has been designed to facilitate recovery at a desired place with the help of parachutes and landing bags.
• Nishant can be used in roles like battlefield reconnaissance (day and night), surveillance, target tracking and localisation, and correction of artillery fire.
• The payloads that can be carried onboard Nishant for surveillance include electro-optical, electronic intelligence, and communication intelligence payloads.
• It can also be used for counter insurgency operations.

The successful flight trials were conducted by the Army before taking delivery of a set of four Nishant – UAVs together with ground control systems. The trials were witnessed by Lt Gen Vinod Nayanar AVSM,

Director General, Artillery; Shri PS Krishnan, DS and Director, ADE; Shri G Sivasankaran, Project Director, Nishant; senior scientists from ADE and DEAL; Army trial team, and user representatives of the equipment from the Army Regiment. Performance of the payload sensors, in particular has been better than the payload sensor equipped on even the imported UAVs already with the Army.