India Becomes Fourth Country to Have Home Made Eye in The Sky

However, Indian system is inferior in comparison to Israeli system as it can monitor only 270 degrees while IL-76 heavy-lift aircraft-mounted AWACS system can carry out 360 degree surveillance at a time.

New Delhi (Sputnik) – Indian Air Force has received indigenous Airborne Warning and Control (AEW&C) Systems mounted on Brazilian planes developed by Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) on Tuesday. So far only United States, Russia and Israel possess AEW&C technology. Sources told Sputnik that aircraft will be based at Indian Air Force base near Pakistan border.  At present Indian security services keep a vigil over its skies with a unique India-Russia-Israel partnership for Airborne Warning and Control (AEW&C) Systems.

Eye in the sky… Indigenous AEW&CS at #AeroIndia2017 in #Yelahanka #Bengaluru pic.twitter.com/SWp7rqp0aK

— DPR (@SpokespersonMoD) February 13, 2017

RM Sh Manohar Parrikar hands over first indigenous AEW&C in IOC configuration to Indian Air Force at #AeroIndia2017 pic.twitter.com/UhKUENCl8j

​“Our western adversary Pakistan has a Swedish design plane. This system of ours is exactly like that and its elevation scan is advantageous. It has air to air refueling which Pakistan does not have. It has many more features and yet it costs only half the price of the Pakistan plane does and I am including the cost of production and development,” Director General of DRDO, Dr S Christopher said.

— DPR (@SpokespersonMoD) February 14, 2017

​DRDO promised better coverage with longer range in next upgraded version of the system. “There are many areas we need to work in when it comes to Electronic Warfare like handling multiple frequencies. We also need to miniaturize our system and make it agile,” said Dr G Satheesh Reddy, Scientific Adviser to Defense Minister.

$359 million project has been developed with complex tactical software for fusion of information from the sensors, to provide the air situation picture along with intelligence to handle identification/classification threat assessment. Battle management functions are built in house to work as a network centric system of Integrated Air Command & Control System (IACCS) node.

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