Bangalore. The country ’s premier agency in the aviation sector, Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) will be handing over NISHANT, it’s first indigenously made Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), to Indian Army very soon.

NISHANT, which means ‘end of darkness’ is a tactical UAV and can be employed in tactical areas in a local domain. “The limited series production is specially prepared for Indian Army as per their requirements. The confirmatory trials of NISHANT are planned and it is ready for delivery”, Project Director G Srinivasa Murthy said.

ADE has also embarked upon an ambitious programme to build another UAV with Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) that has multi-mission capability. RUSTAM, named after Rustam Damania, who was instrumental in conceptualizing the idea, will have 300 km range with 200 kg payload.

According to Murthy, RUSTAM will be in a flying stage in about 3 years. With an endurance level of more than 24 hours, this UAV can be used by all three armed forces. RUSTAM can be useful in reconnaissance and surveillance, target acquisition and designation, communications relay and signal intelligence. ADE has acquired about 4200 acres of land in Chitragurga district in Karnataka which is being developed for test range only for UAV.

The tactical highlights of NISHANT include multi-mission day/night capability using advance payloads, jam resistant command link and digital down link. It is a highly mobile, compact and easily deployable system and can undertake day/ night battle field reconnaissance, surveillance, target tracking and localization. It can also help in correction of artillery fire. With an endurance capacity of 4 hours and 30 minutes, it can attain maximum speed of 185 km per hour.

Prototypes of both the UAVs were displayed at the Aero India 2009.