Strategic electronics has faced a paradigm shift due to private sector involvement in India's defense market, though most remains state-controlled. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used for military and civilian purposes like surveillance, weather monitoring, and law enforcement. Radar and sonar are key technologies for detecting objects at a distance using radio waves and sound, respectively. They are widely used for applications like air traffic control, submarine detection, and mapping the seafloor. India's defense industry includes major public sector undertakings focused on aeronautics, electronics, shipbuilding, and weapons development.

1. Electronics in Defense:<br />Photo courtesy Department of DefenseOperation Specialist 2nd Class Gilbert Lundgren operates radar equipment in the combat information center of the USS Carney<br />Contrary to general perception, strategic electronics has already faced a paradigm shift due to participation of private players along with public-sector units (PSUs), even though a major part of the market is yet to explode in the country. According to Department of Information Technology (DIT), in the year 2007-08, production of strategic electronics in India was approximately Rs 61 billion, showing a growth rate of around 35.6 per cent. <br />DRDO Space Ships<br />UAV: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become lethal and non-lethal force multipliers in warfare, cost-effective alternatives to manned aircraft in specialised civilian roles and as valuable test beds for aeronautical research. Besides, military applications like practice targets, and surveillance and reconnaissance platforms <br />UAVs have promising applications in weather research, communications, disaster management, pollution monitoring, and law enforcement. <br />LAKSHYA – DRDRO<br />Pilotless Target Aircraft (PTA) (named as “Lakshya”) is a reusable aerial target system. Lakshya is remotely operated from ground to provide aerial target for training of gun and Missile crew and Air Defence pilots for all the three Services. Delivery of five Lakshya systems with 26 operational flights for Air Force have been accomplished in 2001-2002. The first batch of Lakshya has already been delivered to the Navy. Three aircraft with Ground Control and Support System have been handed over and four operational flights have been conducted. Phase-I delivery for Army is planned shortly. <br />RADAR<br />This RADAR is the ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar (ALTAIR) located in the Kwajalein atoll on the island of Roi-Namur in the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site. It was initially developed and built between 1968 and 1970.<br />More about RADAR:<br />Photo courtesy NASA (left), Department of Defense (right)Left: Antennas at Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex (part of NASA's Deep Space Network) help provide radio communications for NASA's interplanetary spacecraft. <br />Right: Surface search radar and air search radar are mounted on the foremast of a guided missile destroyer.<br />RADAR can:<br />Detect the presence of an object at a distance - Usually the quot;
somethingquot;
is moving, like an airplane, but radar can also be used to detect stationary objects buried underground. In some cases, radar can identify an object as well; for example, it can identify the type of aircraft it has detected. <br />Detect the speed of an object - This is the reason why police use radar.<br />How RADAR works: <br />Let's take a typical radar set designed to detect airplanes in flight. The radar set turns on its transmitter and shoots out a short, high-intensity burst of high-frequency radio waves. The burst might last a microsecond. The radar set then turns off its transmitter, turns on its receiver and listens for an echo. The radar set measures the time it takes for the echo to arrive, as well as the Doppler shift of the echo. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, roughly 1,000 feet per microsecond; so if the radar set has a good high-speed clock, it can measure the distance of the airplane very accurately. Using special signal processing equipment, the radar set can also measure the Doppler shift very accurately and determine the speed of the airplane. <br />SONAR<br />Sonar is a modern technology which helps us to track submarines, fish, ship wrecks, map the seabed and for other navigational purposes. The four main factors that affect the performance of a sonar system are a high power transmitter, an efficient transducer, a sensitive receiver and an acoustic communication system. Although the present day sonar systems have only a limited number of feature es such as a 2-dimensional screen and a view of less than 360 degrees of the surrounding, we are most likely to see better sonar systems with a 3-dimensional screen, attached to new computer systems along with a 360 degree view of the surrounding in the near future. <br />SONAR Working:<br />Present day uses of sonar :<br />• The military uses a large number of sonar systems to detect, identify and locate submarines. <br />• In acoustic homing torpedoes, in acoustic explosive mines and in mine detection <br />• In finding schools of fish <br />• For depth sounding applications <br />• Mapping of the seabed <br />• Navigation purposes <br />• Acoustic locating of submerged wrecks <br />If you are decided to be part of the defense projects, you can join<br />Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) <br />DRDO<br />Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) <br />Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) <br />Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL) <br />Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited (GRSE) <br />Goa Sihipyard Limited (GSL) <br />Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) <br />Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited (MIDHANI)<br />