One of the three services wants to use the Tapas medium-altitude, long endurance (MALE) drone for activities around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, so the DRDO is continuing with its project to make it better.
The Aeronautical Development Establishment Laboratory’s Tapas drones have not been able to fully meet the Joint Services Qualitative Requirements of flying at 30,000 feet for more than 24 hours at a time, so they have been taken out of the mission mode projects group.
Sources in the Defense Research and Development Organization said, “One of the defense forces is interested in using the Tapas drones for operations in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where it can be used for surveillance and reconnaissance.”
Defense forces have tried the Tapas drones. During the tests, they were able to fly for more than 18 hours and reach an altitude of 28,000 feet.
The drone was also flown over the Arabian Sea by Indian Navy officials for a few hours as part of one of the tests. It took off from an airfield in Chitradurga, Karnataka.
As per the sources, the Tapas drone only needs a short runway to take off. It can be used from some of the island nations’ smaller airfields.
Officials from DRDO said that the lab would be working on better designs and more power for the drone to make it better for meeting service standards for altitude and endurance, which it wasn’t able to do in the most recent tests.
A top defense research organization run by Dr. Samir V. Kamat has been working on big drone projects, such as Ghatak and Archer, which are unmanned combat aerial vehicles.
