The first indigenous composites sonar dome was flagged off today by Raksha Mantri, Shri Manohar Parrikar, during DEFEXPO 2016 today. Dr. S. Christopher, Secretary Dept. of Defence (R&D) and DG DRDO, Vice Admiral P Murgesan, Vice Chief of Naval Staff, Dr. S Guru Prasad, Chief Controller R&D (PC&SI) and Rear Admiral (Retd) RK Shrawat, CMD MDL were present on the occasion.

The sonar dome has been designed by R&DE(E), a DRDO lab based in Pune and manufactured by composites manufacturing company M/s Kineco Ltd, Pilerne, Goa. Thus India joins a select group of nations which have the capability of realizing large composites structure with multi-functional requirements, complex geometry and high structural rigidity with acoustic transparency. This was possible due to the Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) process technology with built-in process monitoring capability, to ensure manufacture of a quality product, developed at R&DE(E), DRDO, Pune. In this process, manufacturing technology was successfully transferred to M/s Kineco, Goa, who have now joined a select band of companies worldwide with this capability.

This is the first This will now pave the way for realizing more ambitious naval structures such as entire ship hulls as well as land based and aerospace applications.