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India is continuing with its plans to develop a fully indigenous medium-altitude and long-endurance drone, Tapas, which is being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
“We are going to continue with the programme and the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) laboratory has been working on it. Even though it has been taken out of the mission mode category of projects, it will continue to be developed. We will add more altitude and endurance in it,” defence officials told indiatoday.in.
The Tapas drones have been tested by the defence forces. During trials, it managed to reach an altitude of 28,000 feet and could fly for over 18 hours.
In one of the trials, the drone was also operated by Indian Navy officials over the Arabian Sea for a few hours after it flew from an airfield in Karnataka’s Chitradurga. Sources said that the runway length required for the Tapas drone to take off is not very high and can be used from some of the small airfields in the island territories.
DRDO officials said the ADE laboratory would be working on improving designs and increasing the power in the drone to make it more suitable for service requirements of altitude and endurance, which it was not able to meet in the recent evaluations.
The DRDO is working on major drone projects, including unmanned combat aerial vehicles like Ghatak and other projects like Archer.
