DRDO successfully conducts Flight Test of ABHYAS

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO, an agency under Ministry of Defence) conducted successful flight test of ‘ABHYAS’, a High-speed Expendable Aerial Target (HEAT). The test was conducted from Interim Test Range (ITR), at Balasore in Chandipur, Odisha.

Key Highlights of Test

• The trial flight test was tracked by various Radars & Electro Optic Systems.
• Results: Test proved its performance in fully autonomous waypoint (means a series of unique abstract GPS points that create artificial airways) navigation mode.
• The system performance was as per the simulations carried out.
• Importance: the test demonstrated the capability of ABHYAS to meet requirement of mission for a cost effective High-speed Expendable Aerial Target (HEAT).

About ABHYAS

It a high-speed expendable aerial target (HEAT), which offers a realistic threat scenario for practice of weapon systems. It is designed for autonomous flying (with help of an autopilot).

Features:

• Configuration: It is designed on an in-line small gas turbine engine. For its guidance and navigation it uses indigenously developed Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) based navigation system.
• It has a Luneburg lens (a spherically symmetric gradient-index lens) in the nose cone which improves the radar cross-section of target for weapons practice.
• It has an Acoustic Miss Distance Indicator (AMDI, a multi-role scoring system for gunnery training and weapons assessment) to indicate the distance it missed.