INDIA. Mumbai: Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed an Advanced Chaff Technology to safeguard fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) against hostile radar threats.
The advanced Chaff material and chaff cartridge-118/I has been developed by DRDO’s laboratory at Jodhpur, in collaboration with High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL), a Pune-based laboratory of DRDO, meeting qualitative requirements of IAF. The Indian Air Force has started the process of induction of this technology after the completion of successful user trials.
In today’s electronic warfare, the survivability of fighter aircraft is of prime concern because of advancements in modern radar threats. To ensure the survivability of aircraft, Counter Measure Dispensing System (CMDS) is used which provides passive jamming against Infra-Red and radar threats. Chaff is a critical defence technology used to protect fighter aircraft from hostile radar threats.
The importance of this technology lies in the fact that a very little quantity of chaff material deployed in the air acts as a decoy to deflect enemy’s missiles for ensuring the safety of the fighter aircraft. The technology has been given to the industry for production in large quantities to meet the annual rolling requirement of the IAF, an official statement said.
Chaff is primarily an electronic counter-measure technology used by militaries worldwide to protect high-value targets such as fighter jets or naval ships from radars and radio frequency (RF) guiding mechanisms of the enemy missiles. The chaff deployed in the air reflect as multiple targets for the missile guidance systems, thus misleading the enemy radars or deflecting adversary missiles
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh lauded DRDO, IAF, and the industry for indigenous development of this critical technology, terming it as one more step of DRDO towards ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’ in strategic defence technologies. Secretary Department of Defence R&D and Chairman DRDO Dr. G Satheesh Reddy also congratulated the teams associated with the successful development of this advanced technology that will further strengthen the IAF.
