BANGALORE: The Indian Army is all set to receive a home-grown target training system that will enable soldiers perfect their marksmanship. The system named DHVANI (Detection and Hit Visualization using Acoustic N-wave Identification), will be officially handed over to the Army brass in Hyderabad on Thursday. Developed by Bangalore-based National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research wing, DHVANI will soon get on to a mass production mode at one of the ordnance factories. (In a pressure profile, the wave takes the shape of the letter 'N' due to movement of the bullet and hence it is called N-wave.)
NAL Director Shyam Chetty told Express that the new technology has great potential and multiple agencies other than the Army, likely to use it in future. "DHVANI provides many options for the shooter and it will reduce our dependency on imported systems, which are outdated. NAL will continue to supply the critical embedded chip inside the system. The user evaluation trials conducted at the Army shooting ranges in Bangalore and Mhow have been really encouraging. DHVANI can identify exact point of the bullet impact and relay real-time feedback to the shooter," Chetty said.
He said the Indian Army would have to spent 30-40 per cent less for DHVANI when compared to similar systems from abroad. "DHVANI incorporates many features and will tell the shooter the performance parameters within split seconds. The impact area of the bullet is assessed with the use of sensors and the data is sent to a display unit fixed next to the shooter through wireless transmission," he added.
Currently a marksman firing at a designated target needs to do a manual assessment of every shot, which is a time-consuming process. "The new system will immensely improve the skills of a sharpshooter and will aid him to fire at faster rate and with greater accuracy. We see a huge export potential for the system among the hobby sports teams," he added.
An Army officer attached to one of the elite wings of Indian Army situated near Hebbal said DHVANI will certainly speed up the training schedules. "There are better systems available in the world, but we are happy with Indian-made unit. It will aid precision shooting and help improve the focus of the firing squad. Time taken to assess the performance of each shot fired will come down drastically now. We hope the production standards of DHVANI will now match the prototype we fired with," the officer said.