NAL gets India’s first facility to test Micro-Air Vehicles

India’s Rs 80 crore national Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) programme to design and develop MAV has got a boost with the setting up of a Micro Air Vehicle Aerodynamics Research Tunnel in the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) campus in the city — the first of its kind in India to test fixed-, flapping- and rotary-wing MAVs in the 500 mm (50- cm) wingspan category. The Union home ministry is planning to technologically beef up internal security to fight terror and naxalism within the country’s borders through low-intensity, contained conflicts.  And it is looking at MAVs for the purpose due to which the MAV programme was kick-started. The national programme is a joint initiative of Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Department of Science and Technology, Centre for Science and Industrial Research (CSIR), NAL, private industries and academia. A few products have already been developed by DRDO laboratories along with the private industry, like the autonomous Unmanned Air Vehicle, Netra, which featured in the Bollywood movie, 3 Idiots.  This has already been inducted by Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Border Security Force (BSF). Similarly, NAL has also developed three MAVs: Black Kite, Golden Hawk and Pushpak. The Black Kite — a 300mm wingspan fixed wing autonomous MAV with an endurance of 30 minutes — has an autopilot system developed indigenously.  Golden Hawk is a fixed-wing MAV. The two prototypes developed by NAL are based on conventional and the blended wing. That apart city-based National Design and Research Forum (NDRF) is also involved in the research and development MAV’s in the 300 mm to 1000 mm class.

Source: DNA


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