Y Dileep, director of the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) in DRDO, told News18 on Tuesday that an indigenous engine for the light multirole fighter Tejas is on the way.
“Before working on Tejas, I worked for Tejas for almost 25 years. Many systems in Tejas avionics flight control, landing air system, airframe design, advanced avionics, general systems are all indigenous options. Indigenous drive is key in Tejas. Yes, the engine is reliable now,” he said in aero India 2023 in Bengaluru.
Y Dileep, who joined DRDO on September 13, 1991, as a designer for quadruplex flight control system for Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) with prime responsibility for design and development of digital flight control system architecture and computers Started my career. DFCC), which was successfully flown in 2001 and approved for LCA production requirements.
“I was also the director of GTRE (Gas Turbine Research Establishment) till a few weeks ago. I can assure you that the engine development today is 73 kilonewtons as against 78 kilonewtons that is required for the Kaveri engine… It is all ready to go and efforts are on to fly the engine on the Tejas aircraft… Very soon we will fly,” he told News18.
wealth of experience
Y Dileep worked in the area of real-time embedded systems design and engineering of avionics systems for manned and unmanned aerials with core expertise on highly reliable and redundant architecture systems for “Safety Critical Embedded Systems Design”. In his 30 years of service in ADE, he has contributed to projects and programs in various capacities, provided technical guidance and support to the project teams of Rustom-I, Rustom-II, Nirbhay, Sudarshan, Nishant and L-II programs Is. He led the team towards design, development, airworthiness certification of Lavcon Air Data Computer (LADC), Air Data Computer (ADC) for LCA Mk1, 2A, Mk-II and LCA Navy. As a senior member of the IFCS group, he resolved issues regarding LCA integration sites and aircraft. As president of QRT, he coordinated and streamlined the production of the LCA-FCS LRU.
Elaborating on the issue of indigenous engines, he said, “The second is the Kaveri dry engine for the strategic program of unmanned combat aerial vehicles…which is not required when the afterburner is complete and matures to a very high level of technology Is. The engine has been significantly improved. We are going to Russia for high altitude testing of the engine. The country has complete engine manufacturing capabilities for the fourth generation engine. The Kaveri engine is expected to be ready by 2024 or 2025. All the technology is ready. If approvals and funding come through, this can be done in record time.”
Tapas on the UAV
They also discussed the Tactical Airborne Platform for Aerial Surveillance-Beyond Horizon-201 or TAPAS BH-201 and its competition with the IAI Heron UAV.
“It is a completely indigenous technology designed for UAVs in the category of Medium Altitude Long Endurance Tapas UAVs. Every system running with this bird is completely indigenous…including the engine. It has been developed by another DRDO laboratory in collaboration with a private company based in Coimbatore. Indigenous content is very important for Atmanirbhar Bharat, Atmanirbhar Bharat. This will also reduce costs in the long run. Line of sight up to 1,000 kilometers. An important feature of data links is that they are jam resistant. Everything is done indigenously.”
He also talked about the edge that Tapas has over other UAVs. “The robustness, reliability of the bird, the secure data link, the autonomous technology for take-off and landing capabilities, and the advanced ground control station that goes into flying this bird… features like these make it one of the best in the world once imported.” Makes it different and more capable than other foreign stuff. This advanced ground control station can be used to fly other UAVs which are going to be indigenous. You also need to have extra resources to fly those birds Not required. Life cycle cost of this Tapas will be less. Unlike other systems available in the market, especially the imported one (Heron UAV), it requires separate ground control system. Inventory maintenance, huge database, supply Change management will become very difficult. At ADE we are looking for easy operation and maintenance in the long run. We are offering ground control systems, which are interoperable.”
what does the defense minister say
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh has said that indigenous manufacturing of aero-engines is the need of the hour for the aerospace sector to achieve complete self-reliance, and the ministry is working on the details. He said that LCA Tejas is a game changer for the aerospace industry.
According to the Defense Ministry, he emphasized on indigenous design and development of required weapon systems using specific technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. The Ministry handed over the developed Health Access and Monitoring System through MIG29K technology Development Fund for the Indian Navy.
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