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System to enhance endurance of diesel submarines

Staff Reporter

A. Sivathanu Pillai

Kochi: The Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL), Ambarnath, is developing an air-independent propulsion (AIP) system that will radically enhance the endurance of diesel submarines, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Chief Controller (Research and Development) and Brahmos Chief Executive Officer A. Sivathanu Pillai has said.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a national symposium on “Towed Array Sonar Systems; Engineering and Technology” at the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL) here on Friday, Mr. Pillai said it would take the lab another five to six years to develop a hydrogen-based fuel cell technology that would raise the endurance of diesel submarines from the present one day to about 25 days.

Pakistan last month became the first South Asian country to commission a diesel-electric submarine with AIP technology. “But they have bought it from the French. Only very few countries have attempted to develop the technology and India is one among them. Besides, hydrogen-based technology is unique,” he said.

Mr. Pillai said the DRDO was exploring all possibilities, including collaboration with other countries, to develop the system.

Describing the indigenous development of towed array sonar technology a significant milestone, Mr. Pillai said that as Nagan — the long-range towed array sonar system for surface ships — would complete all trials by next March, the DRDO would have done ample work on towed array sonars for submarines as well. “The NPOL has begun work on the technological aspects of it. After a discussion with the steering committee headed by Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff, we will soon give them a project, a platform to carry it out,” he said.

“Also under development is a multiple array seabed system for early warning from a reconnaissance point of view which will then form part of the integrated C4I2SR (Command Control Communications Computers Information Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance) system,” he said on the coastal defence system he had earlier mentioned in his keynote address.

As regards the dunking sonar Mihir, developed by the NPOL and tested on board the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) Dhruv, he said efforts were under way to further lower the frequency of the sonar for better range. Attempts are also afoot at the Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL), Visakhapatnam, to create a prototype underwater autonomous vehicle (UAV) with capability to defuse mines. “It should be ready in another three years,” he said.

NSTL Director V. Bhujanga Rao said the lab, which recently commissioned a high speed towing tank, would also develop a Sea-keeping and Manoeuvring Basin (SMB) for quality testing of warships. NPOL Director S. Ananthanarayanan and NMRL Associate Director A.K. Shah also attended the media conference.

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