Rs 300 Crore to Boost Defense: According to an official statement on Thursday, the Ministry of Defence has authorized roughly Rs 300 Crore to Boost Defense through its Technology Development Fund (TDF) to build an ecosystem that improves capabilities in sophisticated technologies and supports ‘Aatmanirbharta,’ (self-reliance) in defense.
Under the “Make in India” effort, DRDO oversees the TDF scheme—a significant Ministry of Defence initiative. To generate military and dual-use technologies that are currently unavailable in the Indian defense sector, the government is providing financial support to Indian startups and MSMEs, in addition to academic and scientific institutions.
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These incentives encourage a culture of design and development in military technology by including the private sector, particularly MSMEs and startups. The TDF wants to strengthen the Indian sector’s capacity and capabilities by developing and manufacturing defense technology.
It aims to establish an ecosystem for research and development whereby businesses and academic institutions cooperate to satisfy military and defense industry needs both now and going forward.
The government seeks to create a robust military manufacturing ecosystem in the nation so that “Aatmanirbharta” may occur in the field of defense technologies.
The Defense Ministry talked about several successful businesses that had gotten help from the program on Wednesday.
According to Business Insider, Combat Robotics, a company based in Pune, has used the program to make a creative unmanned vehicle simulator. This model works well for creating unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It’s great for companies that are working on autonomous systems.
ChiStats Labs Private Limited, another defense equipment startup based in Pune, is creating virtual sensors for aero gas turbine engine health monitoring, which contributes to the engines’ increased longevity and operational reliability.
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The system is based on contemporary machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI/ML) technologies.
As part of the ‘Autonomous Drone as First Responder for Search and Report Operations in Enclosed/Indoor Environments’ project, Bengaluru-based NewSpace Research and Technologies Pvt. Ltd. has created a cutting-edge unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can explore indoor environments in low light.
By allowing new uses for surveillance, industrial inspections, search and rescue operations, environmental monitoring, and hazardous environment exploration, the success of the project would significantly advance the field of unmanned aerial systems technology, the Ministry also said. Technical support and mentoring for the evolution of this technology have come from CAIR, Bengaluru.
