Discussions for the procurement of 30 armed Predator/MQ9B drones for the US based General Atomics are at an advanced stage. The sale of 30 drones to India (the first non-NATO country) is going to be an estimated cost of USD 3 billion. The Indian Navy, Air Force and the Army are going to get ten each of these drones. The deal got approval from the Defence Procurement Board late last year.

While the deal for the state-of-the-art drones has yet to be formalized, Financial Express Online has earlier reported that the Indian Navy has leased two drones from the US based General Atomics. With continuous Chinese aggression in the Indian Ocean Region as well as in eastern Ladakh these two drones are playing a very important role in conducting reconnaissance of maritime and land borders with Pakistan and China.

Dr Vivek Lall, is the Chief Executive for the General Atomics Global Corporation. On Monday he was bestowed with the highest title of honor by the Governor of Kentucky – “Kentucky Colonel’’. It is recognition of an individual’s noteworthy accomplishments.

In an exclusive interaction, Dr Lall responds to a wide range of questions by Huma Siddiqui. Following are excerpts:

What operational capabilities do the General Atomics’ SkyGuardians and SeaGuardians have that makes India want to acquire them? How does the operational cost of Guardian compare with manned surveillance aircraft?

GA’s MQ-9B SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian are revolutionary new remotely piloted aircraft systems for global militaries. MQ-9Bs are rolling off the production line for our first customer, the Royal Air Force, and we are preparing to fulfil other customer orders.

The MQ-9B boasts industry-leading endurance and interoperability. The RPA provides Multi-Domain Operations in support of Land, Maritime Surveillance, Anti-Submarine Warfare, Anti-Surface Warfare, Strike, Electronic Warfare roles and expeditionary roles. The ability of the MQ-9B to network with other Air, Sea, Land and Space systems creates an exceptional opportunity to expand employment options.

The platform was designed and built from the ground up to meet NATO airworthiness certification standards to be flown in civil airspace. That is important because flying in civil airspace increases access to flight routes and opens the door to many more mission possibilities.

Other enhancements include automatic takeoff and landing, as well as the ability to fly in adverse weather, including icing conditions. Additionally, the aircraft is designed to survive bird and lightning strikes.

That’s just a few of the reasons that militaries throughout the world are looking to acquire MQ-9B SkyGuardians and SeaGuardians. At the end of the day, it’s really all about providing unsurpassed surveillance and intelligence capabilities to our customers.

Recently the Avenger demonstrated how collaborative autonomous platforms with advanced sensing can deliver persistent, shared air domain awareness. Can you please elaborate?

We have been using our jet-powered Avenger UAS to test and demonstrate new levels of autonomous control for unmanned aircraft.

Earlier this year, GA paired one of our company-owned Avengers with five hardware-in-the-loop synthetic Avengers to autonomously search and follow an artificially generated adversary. The live-virtual swarm utilized a simulated Infrared Search and Track (IRST) sensor network in addition to the government-furnished CODE autonomy engine to accomplish the mission.

The flight demonstrated GA’s unique ability to deploy autonomy using a blend of simulated threats, real-world sensors, and live aircraft.

Last year, we had two other important autonomy demonstrations. During one, GA used two Avengers, each equipped with a Lockheed Martin Legion Pod, to send long-range air threat data captured passively and fused by an advanced sensor algorithm to a Command Center. This flight test was the first-time a UAS platform and sensors were used to deliver fused sensor data. Avenger with Legion Pod demonstrates how collaborative autonomous platforms with advanced sensing can deliver persistent, shared air domain awareness.

In the other demo, GA successfully completing an airborne Manned-Unmanned Teaming demonstration, pairing a GA-owned Avenger with a modified King Air 200 as a surrogate for 4th- and 5th-generation tactical fighters. The flight demonstrated autonomous collaboration using command and control (C2) of the Avenger from a ruggedized tactical control tablet, integrated with Autonodyne’s RCU-1000 Advanced Human Machine Interface, to provide real-time situational awareness combined with complex behavior tasking. The airborne node utilized a GA-ASI-modified King Air 200, which allowed for rapid integration and test of the C2 hardware.

There has been significant interest in land based EMALS emerging. Can you share some information on that programme?

The electromagnetic aircraft launch system’s flexible system architecture makes it well-suited for installation on a wide variety of ship platforms, as well as for expeditionary land-based applications. The modular design is configurable to meet limited runway length options often associated with remote location installations. With the power to launch a wide range of aircraft weights, an expeditionary land-based electromagnetic launch system can offer significant strategic capabilities to enable greater surveillance capability, a larger mission envelope, and support for more integrated mission operations.

The concept of a land-based catapult system is not new. As you may be aware, a fully operational test track system has been in place at Joint base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey. The system has been in continuous service since 2009 supporting testing, troubleshooting, and training, and successfully performing thousands of catapult test launches for aircraft including F-35C, EA-18G Growlers, F/A-18 Super Hornets, C-2 Greyhound planes, and E2D Advanced Hawkeyes.

Framatome and General Atomics recently celebrated the reopening of the fuel manufacturing facility dedicated to TRIGA research reactors. What is this facility?

That is correct. Framatome and General Atomics recently celebrated the reopening of the fuel manufacturing facility dedicated to TRIGA research reactors. The renovations were done to support new requirements by the US Department of Energy (US DOE). The facility received the authorization to restart from the French regulator ASN and resumed operation on December 20, 2021.

Following an extensive renovation, this unique facility houses the latest industrial equipment and utilizes modernized processes to fabricate TRIGA fuel at Framatome CERCA in Romans-sur-Isère, France. This refurbishment project was launched in 2018 with funding by the US DOE and TRIGA International’s capital investments.

Autonomous Flight Termination Units carried onboard two sounding rockets were successfully demonstrated and performed as expected during a High Operational Tempo for Hypersonic test flight campaign. Could you please elaborate?

The missile and space flight industry must provide a means of preventing a launch or aeronautical vehicle and its hazards, including payload hazards, from reaching any populated or other protected area in the event of a vehicle failure.  Our AFTUs (Autonomous Flight Termination Units) are designed to offer greater flexibility to help assure missile flight safety for missiles launched for space applications or military weapons testing. The test flight campaign was conducted in October 2021 and was sponsored by the Navy Strategic Systems Programs and Army Hypersonic Program Office. Test flight demonstrations like this are a critical part of the process toward verifying and inserting this technology into future hypersonic weapon systems.