MUMBAI: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), charged with Indian military’s research and development, is pumping in over Rs 400 crore into IIT Bombay and IIT Madras to kick-start advanced defence-related aerospace research and development. Products and technology now under development include aircraft that can morph into a missile, gas turbine engines used to run aircraft and missile propulsion, hypersonics that enable flights to go at several times the speed of sound, and rockets for long-range missiles.This is a unique partnership between DRDO & IITs , sealed with ‘Make in India’ in mind. A tripartite MoU, recently signed between the DRDO and the two IITs, is pending approval from the Ministry of Defence, according to highly placed sources closely involved in the alliance. Approval should come through in a couple of months DRDO will give Rs 180 crore each to IIT Madras and IIT Bombay for research, while another Rs 50 crore-Rs 60-crore funding will go towards infrastructure development at IIT Bombay.The latter will be the administrative headquarter for the new Centre for Propulsion Technology. “This is one of the biggest investments by the government into academic research and cuts to the root of the Make in India campaign,” said SR Chakravarthy, professor of aerospace engineering, who is in charge of the project at IIT Madras. This is part of recent efforts to revitalise DRDO, which has faced frequent flak from CAG. Under Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and a new DRDO chief, the organisation has initiated a restructuring, according to recent media reports.Going ahead, DRDO could identify private partners from the industry who can work with research faculty at IIT on technology development. While DRDO will be the primary funding agency now, other industries could join in later, said Krishnan Balasubramaniam, dean of industrial research at IIT Madras. While IIT Madras and IIT Bombay will be the main nodal centres, three other IITs — Kharagpur, Guwahati and Bhubaneshwar, along with NIT Surat will be associates in the research to be undertaken.Three-four small groups of professors from these associate institutes will pick up projects and work with IIT Madras and Bombay faculty members. This kind of inter collaboration among the IITs for a project of such a big magnitude is also infirst of its kind, said Chakravarthy. The ideation for the new Centre for Propulsion Technology has been going on for the past year and a half, mostly taking final shape in forms of approvals early this year, said Chakravarthy.At IIT Madras, this centre has 45 faculty across eight departments participating in the project, while at IIT Bombay, 25 faculty across departments will participate in highend aerospace technology research being conducted for the first time in the country.Currently, India imports 60-70% of the military aircraft and where it is indigenously developed the design still comes from outside. For instance, the Sukhoi aircraft that India buys from Russia, the manufacturing rights are bought but we don’t do the design. “This kind of a research centre will enable us to get the design basis. We can design very high end machinery for which design basis will not be available anywhere else in the world,” said Chakravarthy.Four streams have been identified for research. One of them, hypersonics, is targeted towards technology for developing advanced version of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile. The missile travels at speeds of Mach 2.8 to 3.0. IIT is targeting BrahMos version that could travel at speed of Mach 6.5 and versions that could travel at Mach 12 and Mach 13.