Pune: Pune-based Sagar Defence Engineering’s Spotter drone was a part of the Indian Navy’s Naval Commanders’ Conference operational demonstration and was witnessed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
The nation’s first unparalleled maritime Spotter Drone, developed in-house in collaboration with the Indian Navy, took off at 20 knots to perform disengage manoeuvres for spotting missions and landed back on India’s maiden indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant. During the operation, the Minister had a detailed discussion, and his queries were addressed on the importance of enabling unmanned and autonomous systems in the maritime domain.
In 2021, Indian Navy signed a deal with Sagar Defence Engineering for 30 units of the Spotter drone, which have been delivered and inducted to the Indian Navy in 2022. Further to that, earlier this year, the Indian Navy re-ordered 60 more units of the Spotter drone, which will be delivered by October 2023.
The elated Captain Nikunj Parashar, co-founder and Managing Director of Sagar Defence Engineering, said, “We are elated to showcase our Spotter multi-copter drone which is India’s first of its kind, indigenously designed and developed for the Indian Navy. It will enable the forces to have scheduled inspections to prior detect the threats and share crucial information in real-time to immobilize the threats, save the loss of lives of the armed force personnel, and plan the tactics during mission-critical situations.”
Sagar Defence Engineering’s Spectre UT AJNA “Spotter Drone” is the country’s maiden indigenously designed, developed, and manufactured Ship launched Tactical spotting multi-copter drone which has achieved a flight time of 120 minutes on a single flight in a rough sea environment and can cover the distance of up to 20 km with payload carrying capacity of 3 kgs without hassle with proven ability to withstand high crosswinds.
At the same time, it has the autonomous launch and recovery capability from a moving platform attaining speeds up to 45 mph. It is equipped with an electro-optic camera and thermal imager camera to scan any region of Interest for target detection and intervention as per the user.
The drone has the capability to cope with the movements of the warships which contributes to enhancing surveillance and security on the open seas. It will enable the forces to have scheduled inspections to prior detect the threats and share crucial information in real-time to immobilize the threats, save the loss of lives of the armed force personnel, and plan the tactics during the mission-critical situation.
