Lucknow: Defence Public Sector Undertaking (DPSU) Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Dynamatic Technologies Limited (DTL) inked the first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for marketing, manufacturing and selling of IAI’s Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAVs) to Indian potential customers including Indian Defence Forces, Paramilitary Forces and Central Armed Police Forces. The tripartite agreement was signed at the five-day 11th edition of DefExpo 2020 which began in Lucknow on February 5.
The MoU was signed between Sanjiv Shukla, ED (Corporate Planning), HAL, Eli Alfassi, Executive Vice President, Marketing for IAI and Arvind Mishra, Executive Director and Global COO Hydraulics and Homeland Security for DTL, in the presence of R Madhavan, CMD (HAL), senior executives of HAL, IAI and DTL.
Madhavan said that “The collaboration will provide excellent opportunity to HAL to expand its product offerings to defence customers, absorb critical technologies and strengthen the aerospace ecosystem in the country, especially for UAVs”.
Nimrod Sheffer, President and CEO, IAI said: “We are delighted to sign the strategic agreement with our partners, HAL and DTL. India is an important strategic market for UAVs and I am confident of IAI’s extensive experience and the technological capabilities of HAL and DTL will lead to significant advancements in the field.”
CEO & Managing Director of Dynamatic Technologies Limited, Dr Udayant Malhoutra, said, “This is a Global PPP between HAL, our partner for over two decades, IAI a world leader in UAV technology who we have been teaming with since 2017. This collaboration will provide a boost to Make in India and we are committed to establish a broad technological and industrial eco-system within the country.”
Presently, UAVs are playing significant role in wars and other tactical missions such as Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). In the coming years Indian defence forces are likely to induct a large number of UAVs to meet such requirements. HAL has the best capability and infrastructure available in India to manufacture world class and battle proven UAVs of IAI. IAI as design authority, HAL as Principal Contractor and DTL as Principle Sub-Contractor will complement one another to provide best in class Make in India UAVs to Indian defence forces.
HAL as a long-time partner of IAI is involved in the depot level maintenance of all the MALE and Short Range class of UAVs supplied by IAI to the Indian Defence Forces since 2004. Taking the HAL-IAI collaboration one step ahead, under the scope of this MoU, this partnership would be the first in country to manufacture IAI designed UAVs in India like Short Range Tactical class having long endurance. This collaboration will enhance technology sharing and business partnership between India and Israel.
HAL and New Space Research & Technologies Pvt Ltd signed a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to explore cooperation for joint development and manufacturing of various products and systems in the area of unmanned systems, swarm technology and space systems.
The NDA was signed by D Maiti, General Manager (Planning) for HAL and Sameer Joshi, Director, New Space Research & Technologies Pvt Ltd.
