The Indian Navy has revealed its plans to buy 40 naval unmanned aerial systems (NUAS) In a Request for Information (RFI) released on 29 June.
In the RFI, the country’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Indian Navy stated they are looking to buy the drones for surveillance activities, including signals intelligence (SIGINT), target acquisition, surveillance, and maritime domain awareness surrounding a naval task force.
The secondary roles of NSUAS would include anti-piracy, antiterrorist activities and assisting in search and rescue (SAR).
Through the RFI, the navy also seeks information about the technical support being provided for maintenance and support of the facility during its service life. The service life of the facility should be at least fifteen years.
The NSUAS would comprise at least the following components:
The officials also emphasized that the bidding companies will be required to “provide indigenous software, which is used for running applications on their equipment/system in their proposal.”
Indian Navy is boosting its capacity and capability in the last couple of months. In the past month, the navy also announced plans to purchase eight new next-generation corvettes.
As emphasized by the officials, these corvettes will be versatile platforms for a variety of roles including surveillance missions, escort operations, deterrence, surface action group (SAG) operations, search and attack and coastal defence.