E-Paper
What is Bhargavastra? India's indigenous system to counter drone swarms
Bhargavastra can be deployed across diverse terrains, including high-altitude areas and allows the configuration of its sensors and launchers per mission need.
India on Wednesday successfully test fired “Bhargavastra”, an indigenous system to counter the threat of swarm drones in the battlefield. The weapon is seen as a substantial leap in war fighting capabilities as drones dominate modern warfare among nations.
The weapon, designed and developed by Solar Defence and Aerospace Limited (SDAL), was tested in a hard-kill mode which uses micro rockets to target incoming drone swarms.
A drone swarm in a battlefield refers to a large group of drones that operate together in a coordinated way, often using artificial intelligence (AI), to make decisions and adapt to changing threat perceptions without needing constant human control. These swarms come from different directions to attack enemy installations. While some act as decoys (distraction), other drones continue their offensive actions.
All about about India's Bhargavastra
Bhargavastra comes with a multi-layered defensive capabilities. The first layer comes with unguided micro rockets with a 20-meter lethal radius to neutralise drone swarms up to 2.5 km. The second one is equipped with guided micro-missiles for precision targeting.
It also comes with soft-kill methods like jamming and spoofing enemy drones to distract them away from high-value targets.
India's system also has a radar range of 6 to 10 km for detecting small aerial threats. It is also equipped with EO/IR sensors for identifying low radar cross-section drones.
Bhargavastra can be deployed across diverse terrains, including high-altitude areas and its modular system allows the configuration of its sensors and launchers per mission need.
This mobile system is fully compatible with existing network-centric warfare systems and offers near-simultaneous engagement with enemy drones.
The need for an indigenous drone swarm system assumes importance as Pakistan is believed to have used the Turkish-made Kamikaze drones to target India's military installations while responding to New Delhi's Operation Sindoor. Fragments of debris from the Byker YIHA III Kamikaze drones were recovered from several border regions after they were destroyed while in the air by India's air defences.
