The Drone Federation of India (DFI) and Indian Army, represented by the Army Design Bureau (ADB), signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) today for accelerating drone technology development and indigenisation in the drone ecosystem.
DFI and ADB have established a holistic collaboration on roadmap planning, research, testing, manufacturing and adoption of drone, counter drone and associated technologies that are to be utilised by the Indian Army in its operations.
As a first step of this collaboration, DFI and ADB are launching the 'Indian Army’s Him-Drone-a-thon'. This program shall invite proposals for development of drone based solutions for supporting Indian Army operations in the harsh Himalayan terrains. The ADB will provide mentoring and enable field visits to selected participants in order to give Indian industry an exposure of real-life operational scenarios. Further details about this programme shall be launched soon.
“Indian drone startups have started delivering specialised products that meet the Indian Army’s frontline requirements. This collaboration between DFI and ADB will establish new drone use cases and develop high impact drone solutions for the Indian army soldiers via an active industry-academia-user engagement.” said Smit Shah, president, Drone Federation of India.
While acknowledging this partnership, Major General CS Mann, VSM, Additional Director General, Army Design Bureau remarked “This collaboration will help in providing a focused approach towards upgrading Indian drone manufacturing capabilities for meeting defence requirements. It will also enable companies to leverage the expertise on the subject within the Indian Army. We look forward to working together.”
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