The Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE), Bangalore, is one of the six laboratories coming under the aeronautics cluster of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). It was started in 1986 as the Advanced Systems Integration and Evaluation Organisation for enhancing the operational capabilities of the Indian Air Force, through the application of new technologies.
DARE (Website: http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/labs/DARE/English/index.jsp?pg=achieve.jsp.) is in the forefront of research and development in the fields of airborne electronic warfare and mission avionics. The Establishment always strives to achieve self-reliance in the critical technology areas it handles.
There is no room for any shortcoming in the defence competence of the air force. It should be perfect. The technologies employed have to be up-to-date.
The electronic warfare systems have to be mission-effective and fully prepared to meet any emerging challenge. Therefore, state-of-the-art mission avionics should be ensured at any time.
DARE has made substantial contributions in the fields of airborne electronic warfare; airborne processors; and testing and evaluation of electronic warfare systems.
It has implemented various concepts in concurrent engineering in partnership with the industry. (Concurrent engineering involves a style of design in which development stages are run in parallel rather than in series, to reduce lead times and costs. Design and manufacture are often integrated. The entire lifecycle of the product is considered during the early stage of design itself. The transfer of technology is seamless.)
The establishment has two important wings: electronic warfare and mission avionics wing
The electronic warfare wing focusses on the design and development of radar warning systems and warfare suites for various aircraft to enhance their survivability and mission accomplishment. The manufacture is in collaboration with Bharat Electronics Ltd., which is a public sector organisation carrying out design, development and manufacture of sophisticated electronics equipment and components for the use of defence services, paramilitary and other government organisations such as All India Radio, Doordarshan, the Department of Telecommunications, the police and the meteorological departments.
The Mission Avionics Wing has pioneered indigenous development in its area. The mission computers for fighter aircraft have been developed and delivered in bulk. This is a continuation of the efforts of the erstwhile Advanced Systems Integration and Evaluation Organisation, which later emerged as DARE.
It is with the association of the local industry that technology has been developed for the fabrication of metal-clad and metal-core multi-layeredprinted circuitboards foravionics use . Military avionics grade multi-output power supplies in the range of 100 watts to 200 watts form another significant set of products.
The Mission Planning software developed has to be compliant with military standards and extremely user-friendly. It determines the effectiveness of the system. Different variants of the software are made to cater for different aircraft platforms. So the software is designed and developed using object-oriented technology and is compliant with military standards.
(The object-oriented development approach helps manage software complexity and produce large software systems that are easy to maintain. It breaks a system to a hierarchy of manageable pieces — systems, subsystems, modules, objects. The object-oriented paradigm focusses on classes that encapsulate data and algorithms for manipulating the data. The related approach usually places data where they are not directly accessible by the rest of the program. A program may contain multiple copies of each type of object, one for each of the objects being dealt with by the program.)
The data retrieval units associated with the software are so designed as to withstand all adverse temperatures. User-friendly automated test stations for line-replaceable units and PCB maintenance tests are other notable developments.
Facilities
There is a wide range of sophisticated equipment available in DARE to carry out efficiently its commitments in its field of research and development. The researchers have opportunities to use these for their studies for innovative design and production. Many of these have been developed in the Establishment itself.
The “Range On Wheels” developed is a significant facility. This is used to evaluate installed specifications of airborne electronic warfare systems and for fine-tuning electronic countermeasures techniques. This facility comprises items such as threat radar, reference radar, data acquisition station, mission control station and generator vehicle. The data acquisition station contains inter alia data analysis facilities, real-time telemetry, communication, video recording and displays, central timing and a differential GPS (Global Positioning System) base station. The mission control station comprises a mission control vehicle, in which all the activities of flight trials can be monitored and directed.
The Dynamic Avionics Integration Rig is used to carry out extensive testing of all the functions of the aircraft on the Rig.
DARE has equipped fighter aircraft of Indian Air Force and Indian Navy with electronic armour, comprising electronic support measures and self-protection jammers.
All these point to the key role played by this research establishment in maintaining the defence capabilities of our country. The significance of science research in modern warfare offers rich opportunities for the youth with the right aptitude and talent in taking up research as a career. Establishments such as DARE provide excellent platforms to the aspirants.
