COPYRIGHT AEROVIRONMENT Dynamatic Technologies Limited has been selected to manufacture an Indian version of the AeroVironment RQ-11 Ra...
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| COPYRIGHT AEROVIRONMENT |
Dubbed the 'Cheel', the UAS program is a collaborative project under the India-United States Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), announced during US President Barack Obama's visit to India in Jan 2015.
The Cheel will be jointly developed and produced by pooling in Dynamatic's advanced Indian manufacturing and engineering capabilities along with AeroVironment's unique UAV design skills, application expertise and global support services.
In February a pilot production plant was inaugurated. The facility houses an advanced avionics and communications laboratory, payload development facility, composite facility as well as an assembly and testing facility for small Unmanned Aerial Systems.
The Cheel will be offered to Indian Armed Forces and will be equipped with surveillance sensors for ISR roles.
The RQ-11 Raven is a hand launched UAS introduced in 2003 with US military. More than 19000 has been built since then, and is now widely operated by other countries.
The RQ-11B Raven UAV weighs about 1.9 kg (4.2 lb), has a flight endurance of 60–90 minutes and an effective operational radius of approximately 10 km (6.2 miles).
UAV can provide day or night aerial intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance. Standard mission payloads include CCD color video cameras and an infrared night vision camera.
The Raven lands itself by auto-piloting to a pre-defined landing point and then performing a 45° slope (1 foot down for every 1 foot forward) controlled "Autoland" descent.
Incidently, India's National Aerospace Ltd has already built a Raven class UAV called the Slybird.
