India needs to produce more sensors for land, air navigation: G Satheesh Reddy

NEW DELHI: India needs to produce more sensors for land and air navigation, which can enable the country to fulfill its defence requirement and export surplus, a senior DRDO scientist today said.

"If you look at the land and aircraft navigation, the quantity, as in the requirement of sensors is enormous. The land navigation requirement could go into thousands and the same is with aircraft navigation. But ship requirement one could definitely be able to meet," said G Satheesh Reddy, senior DRDO scientist and scientific advisor designate to the Defence Minister.

"We should not only be able to meet the domestic requirement, but also be able to export. BEL ( Bharat Electrical Ltd), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) are working on it," he said.

Reddy was speaking here at a seminar on 'Building Comprehensive Capabilities in R&D and Manufacturing Strategic Electronics' organised by Vivekanada International Foundation.

The senior scientist also emphasised on focussing on development of technologies like the gallium nitride technology used in military electronics.

ISRO chief A S Kiran Kumar, who acted as a moderator, said, it was important to generate synergy with the industry, the government and academic institutions so that the electronic manufacturing sector can get a boost.

He also pitched for different approach in addressing the problems faced during the production of the equipment.

"The question is whether we should be looking at what has been done in the past, reproducing them, or recreating them; or should we be looking at solving the end problems by different approaches," Kumar said.