‘SOORAN’ country’s first unmanned armoured vehicle, capable to fight on battlefields and be operated from a distance, has caught the interest of the Indian Army.

In an effort to ensure minimum casualties during the war, the Indian Army is getting ready to test out an unmanned vehicle next month. ‘SOORAN’ country’s first unmanned armoured vehicle, capable to fight on battlefields and be operated from a distance, has caught the interest of the Indian Army. “SOORAN is field-tested and ready to go for manufacturing. We are still upgrading its autonomous capabilities and working on documentation works,” Dennis Ebenezar, MD of a start-up Defence Master India Pvt Ltd, tells Financial Express Online. The tests will be done in Chennai next month for the Indian Army.

The tests next month which will be carried out next month is of significance, as Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen Bipin Rawat in his interaction with the young Instrumentation &Control engineer had expressed interest in Project SOORAN during the DefExpo 2020.

The son of a retired schoolmaster, Ebenezar explains “The unmanned vehicle weighing around 500 kgs can be operated either through a control room or through a mobile phone. It has a mounted gun turret, and this too can be controlled remotely.”

More about SOORAN

It is multi-terrain vehicle.

Equipped with artificial intelligence and has a petrol engine.

Can be operated in three modes including teleoperated with remote, teleoperated from a mobile control station and through an autonomous mode.

This is possible through artificial intelligence ‘NIVATA’.

It also has onboard long-range cameras, high-end processors, controllers, sensors, power backup, etc.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as well as other stakeholders have shown interest in this futuristic war machine.

For the future Digitised future warfare, he is working on Artificial Super Intelligence NIVATA, which is under development and testing. “NIVATA specially designed to take on terrorists hiding inside buildings,” he says.

“We have three ground and air combat systems are capable to conduct coordinated combat operation using Artificial Intelligence (AI) NIVATA, specially designed to take on terrorists hiding inside buildings. And besides ‘SOORAN’ which is Tele-operated Unmanned Combat Vehicle with Autonomous mode, there is ‘Sky Emperor’: Drone with a Gun. Remote controlled and Autonomous and ‘Scout Flies’ – a cluster of micro-drones used to destroy Specific targets using a small amount of chemical explosives loaded in it.”

“Scout Flies can also be used for mass ground search operations with facial and object recognition and is fully autonomous with pre-designed tasks,” says the man who has self-financed these projects.

“A demonstration is being scheduled for mid-April, where all the three combat systems will conduct a coordinated combat operation with help of NIVATA, with certain pre-designed assignments,” he adds.