The Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Navy have successfully demonstrated transferring of command and control capabilities of the indigenously developed TAPAS 201 UAV from a distant ground station to onboard INS Subhadra.
Key points
- The DRDO and Indian Navy successfully demonstrated transferring of command and control capabilities of TAPAS UAV from a distant ground station to onboard INS Subhadra, 148km from Karwar Naval Base.
- The demonstration took place on June 16 from Aeronautical Test Range (ATR) in Chitradurga which is 285 km from Karwar Naval Base.
- The indigenously developed TAPAS 201 Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV has been designed and developed by the Bengaluru based Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE)
- TAPAS 201, a multi-mission UAV is being developed to carry out the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance roles for the three Armed Forces with an endurance of 24 to 30 hours.
- Dubbed the Indian version of the U.S.’ Predator drones, TAPAS 201 is capable to carry different combinations of payloads like Medium Range Electro Optic, Long Range Electro Optic, Synthetic Aperture Radar, Electronic Intelligence, Communication Intelligence and Situational Awareness Payloads to perform missions during day and night.
- The MALE UAV was earlier referred to as RUSTOM.
