During Operation Sindoor, we saw videos of swarms of drones. Did you know that a Hyderabad-based defence company, Unistring Tech Solutions, manufactured counter-drone systems that rendered many of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used by Pakistan ineffective?
TNIE speaks to veteran scientists K Srinivasa Raju and Dr Nagendra Babu Samineni, who were earlier with DRDO and are now the backbone of the company
We first came across the use of drones in conflicts when Azerbaijan attacked Armenia in 2020. Even then drone warfare was supposed to be in its nascent stage. Unistring Tech Solutions started much earlier, in 2007. How did you have this idea back then?
The company began in 2007. The first-generation entrepreneurs left in between, in 2014. We had the passion of building a deep-tech defence enterprise since the beginning of our DRDO career in 2003. We made a decision that we would be working for a certain time in DRDO, understand the defence technology requirements, then further take the leap as entrepreneurs and build the products that the country needs. Then when we started in 2014, we took over a company that was building a little on technologies and further it.
We noticed technology gaps in the defence industry and where we could easily take immediate steps in building products. Our core expertise is electronics. Dr Nagendra’s expertise is building electronic systems, my [Raju’s] expertise is in building electronic circuits and software algorithms. So we started working on these drones, counter-drones — EW or electronic warfare.
EW is a game where you play with electromagnetic signals. For instance, our mobile phones work with electromagnetic signals. And today, without it, the Armed Forces cannot do proper strike or defence. Electronic warfare is a strategy of taking control of electromagnetic waves.
Protecting our troops’ ability to use the electromagnetic spectrum for communication or radar functionality, while denying the enemy its use is what in simple words is electronic warfare. We started building electronic warfare subsystems initially to start with. This was when we came out from DRDO and started building the company.
What was the situation in DRDO concerning this technology at that time?
As all of us know, DRDO is like the single biggest entity in defence research and is distributed across the country with several laboratories and all pertaining to each technology. For instance, Hyderabad is known for being the missile hub — the brainchild of the great Kalam sir. Bengaluru is known for being an aerospace and radar hub. And Vizag and Cochin for naval science. So, DRDO has been innovating, building the products for several years.
But DRDO being on the government side, and the PSUs like Bharat Electronics and BDL heavily rely on the Indian private industry — right from solution providers to module developers. If you go to the roots of any defence product, it is the Indian private industry which actually is the one which will be driving the underlying technologies. If you say I am making my radar this much and I am making it smaller, all these technologies will be driven by the private industry.
When did the private industry in the defence sector come into prominence?
Let us first look at the global level, say the US model. Although certain things are being done by DARPA, it was always the private industry that has backed up most of these products. Coming to India, let us look at IGMDP, an integrated missile development programme. It was conceived somewhere around 1980. The products of that particular programme have started rolling out in 2000, i.e. after 20 to 25 years. That time, the private industry was not big. DRDO was back then working with around 50 to a maximum of 100 companies.
What were the private companies doing at that point of time? If a missile has to be made, you need a shell. Somebody has to roll it, somebody has to weld it, somebody has to make all of this. There are companies, for instance L&T used to take up some of these works. The design used to be given by DRDO and the private company produced as per that requirement. Similarly, it requires some propellant. Initially, there were ordnance factories which used to do this job. Then slowly the private companies started coming in, somewhere in the 1990s. So the private companies used to support DRDO in terms of the fabrication of these items.
That framework was in existence for about 10 to 15 years. Then the real game change started when these IGMDP programmes started getting into production. The design, testing, evaluation had taken 20 to 25 years. The model as a country that we have evolved is that this technology will be transferred to public sector companies like Bharat Electronics or BDL or ECIL and they would start producing the whole product in combination with private suppliers. Till that point of time, the private companies — both in the electronics industry as well as in the mechanical industry — were getting one, two, three component orders. Somewhere between 2007 and 2010 is where a number of programmes have gone into production.
One among such success stories is the Akash missile. The volume that this system has generated is somewhere close to Rs 60,000 crore to Rs 70,000 crore over a period of five years. When I say Akash missile system, it has radars, computers, missiles, vehicles, etc., all those components.
Akash is like a complete missile shield?
Exactly, it is like a missile shield. It has detection, long-range detection radar, short-range detection radar, guidance radar, communication systems, it has missiles on its own that can go and then attack the enemy. This gave an opportunity for all the private players to build themselves very strong. Because they are getting money, getting the order, they could expand themselves and build the facilities. Thus, after 2007, the entire scenario changed.
The first programmes took 25 years for development. The subsequent programmes, the next generation missiles that the country has started — something like QRSAM where now multiple countries are ready to buy — have taken only around 10 years, from conceptual idea to production. The reason is you have a proper supporting backup industry. If I wanted a motor earlier, it would have taken a year earlier whereas now it is just two months. Most of these components are indigenously produced.
In the last 10 years, the initiatives that were done in the defence domain are really unheard of …
leaving aside the politics. The one man who changed all this I would say was Manohar Parrikar (former defence minister). He was a visionary. He said this kind of model cannot work — producing it through DRDO, public sector. He realised we have to involve the private players also in R&D. We should see to it that they get the orders, that they start developing the systems. If you have a problem, do not restrict yourself to closed-door conversations because you will not get the solution. You will have to speak aloud your problems — call more participants and then ask for the solutions. So, that is where the MoD has opened up. Five years, 10 years ago, if you wanted to get into army headquarters or the air force headquarters, for a private player, it was a nightmare. You were asked around 100 questions — including why do you want a meeting with me? Today, secretaries call private companies and ask us what is it that you want to make these systems better. Do you want some test facilities or a policy modification?
The bureaucratic process has been simplified.
Yes, it has been simplified. It has been made more open to the private industry. They realised that unless we tap this potential, we cannot grow. The result is Operation Sindoor. The result of all that has happened behind the scenes has suddenly emerged in public. You have seen some battles recently, at least two to three. You could stop potential catastrophic damage that could have happened otherwise because we are prepared. We are prepared without depending on foreign countries. Wherever possible, they have built the technology with jammer shields. That is why most of the drones could not get in.
Will this be the future of warfare now?
Yes, this has been proven and on multiple occasions, we have already seen what they can do.
Both of you are into technology. Most people go abroad. Why did you prefer DRDO?
We had a little bit of patriotism right from day one. In fact, this choice was there even for us. In 2003, when we joined DRDO, the size of the batch was 442 — all of them scientists trained together at Pune at the Institute of Armament Technology (now DIAT). Out of that, within three years, 50 per cent left for these kinds of opportunities. In those days, DRDO used to be a kind of launch pad. You join, learn for two to three years, get into some private company and then start building your career. But we never chose that. Whatever we did, we wanted to do it for the country.
The very purpose of quitting was also the same. DRDO is a wonderful organisation. You can run DRDO like an entrepreneur if you want to really do it. But you have the constraints — in terms of purchases. No matter what you do, you cannot accelerate those processes because they are set up to safeguard the public money in a certain way.
We visualised that electronic warfare is a gap for the country. Although DRDO is doing certain things, we were still lagging. We wanted to bridge that. What we wanted to do is we wanted to build a world-class electronic warfare system for the country. In 2017–18, most people had no idea what a counter-drone system was.
Please explain to our readers and viewers what a counter-drone system is.
Back then, in 2018, a drone was a toy, maybe occasionally used in marriage parties. But due to one or two incidents, we came to know how unmanned aerial technologies were growing and realised that drones could be a potential threat in future. Control of the air gives dominance during war. The critical asset for an air force is a pilot. They can afford to lose an aircraft but they can’t afford to lose a pilot because they have been trained for 20 years. But that’s the time that they spend and it’s very very difficult to get this precious resource. You can make an aircraft in maybe five to six years but you can’t build the pilots. With UAVs, you have taken out the pilot from the aircraft. Now you are free. You don’t bother losing a vehicle. That is the power UAV has got in its biggest form. Even in its smallest form, it can create havoc.
This scared us. We were working on communication systems, radars then. We said okay, we will restrict ourselves. And started focusing on this area. By 2020, the product was ready. We were demonstrating it to multiple users. So they were calling us, doing the trials. But nobody was buying.
In 2021, a small incident happened on the Jammu airbase. And suddenly everybody said let’s call the companies who have this product. We went there and took part in the trials. They have selected five to six companies. And we could emerge as the lowest bidder. Then we got the contract. Subsequently after a year, they wanted an upgraded version. The Israelis were there, many Indian companies. We are a very R&D focused organisation and were the only company that technically cleared the trials by both the Army as well as the Air Force. Had we not won the first tender, Israelis would have, the second lowest bidder was a company with Israeli technology. So they would have actually got the order.
Today whether DRDO or Zen Technologies or any other company supplies anti-drone equipment to the government, it is we who are building those products. So we could stop any foreign dependency.
And now fortunately or unfortunately, something has happened. Our systems have worked. The jammers worked perfectly and that is the reason wherever these systems were present in some format, their drones could not reach the actual target. They fell somewhere and then they stopped. They could not even function.
TNIE team: Kalyan Tholeti, Prasanna RS, Nitika Krishna, Lipsa Akkala