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Indian Army Launches DAKSH
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 21 December 2011, 01:15 IST
Bangalore: Nations Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) handed over the newly developed Remotely Operated vehicle (ROV), DAKSH to the Indian Army.
The project started on May 2002 and was done in partnership with companies like Dynalog, Tata, Bharat Electronics, and Theta Control. The ROV underwent extensive user trials in Jammu& Kashmir prior to the production.
Daksh is primarily designed to handle and diffuse IED's and is equipped with multiple cameras, X-ray devices for confirming the presence of explosives, on board shotgun for blasting through door locks in the case of car bombs which will make it a supreme soldier in diverse terrains. It will also be useful in the route clearance operations on borders which are prone to terror attacks using IED's.
According to Sundaresh, DRDO's chief controller of armament combat engineering, Daksh will be first deployed on northern and eastern command areas of the army and depending on the feedback, DRDO plans to develop an improvised version called DAKSH Mk-1
According to Maj Gen Bassi, the Army started thinking of buying counter IED equipments in the 1990's. They had to acquire 45 such equipments from the UK while DRDO was asked to build the ROV's. The imported ROV's from the UK cost around 1.8 crores whereas the indigenously developed robot costs around 90 lakh which is half the amount. So this will eventually contribute on saving the defense budget and over the time period for the procurement.
The Army received its first consignment of 6 ROV's and is expected to receive the remaining 14 within a year and is planning on buying 100 more ROV's in the future.