The Rudram (
IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during ...
:
Rudram
''Shri Rudram'' ( sa, श्रीरुद्रम्, śrī-rudram), is a Vedic mantra or chant in homage to Rudra (an epithet of Shiva) taken from the ''Krishna Yajurveda's'' ''Taittiriya Samhita'' (TS 4.5, 4.7). It comprises two parts, ...
, meaning remover of sorrows) is a series of air-to-surface
ground attack
In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movement ...
and
anti-radiation missiles
An anti-radiation missile (ARM) is a missile designed to detect and home in on an enemy radio emission source. Typically, these are designed for use against an enemy radar, although jammers and even radios used for communications can also be t ...
in development by the
Defence Research and Development Organisation of India. It can be launched from a range of altitudes with large
standoff distance for destroying enemy surveillance radars, communication stations and bunkers. It will be manufactured jointly by
Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) and
Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) after trials and introduction.
DRDO also involved
Adani Defence and Aerospace under Development cum Production Partner programme for
mass production
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...
.
Description
Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) is the primary agency which carried out the design and development of the missile system along with
Armament Research and Development Establishment
The Armament Research & Development Establishment (ARDE) is a laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Located in Pune, it is the main DRDO lab involved in the development of conventional armaments.
History
A ...
(ARDE),
Defence Electronics Research Laboratory
Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL) is a laboratory of the Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO). Located in Hyderabad, it is actively involved in the design and development of integrated Electronic Warfare systems for the ...
(DLRL),
High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL),
Research Centre Imarat (RCI) and
Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory
Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL) is a laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) which comes under Ministry of Defence. Located in Chandigarh, the laboratory has become one of the major DRDO labs in the f ...
(TBRL). Many subsystem level developmental works were outsourced to private sector players. Software Development Institute of the Indian Air Force (IAF) helped in the integration of DRDO ARM with
Sukhoi Su-30MKI while the
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Nasik Division did the AKU-58 launcher modification which undertook extensive wind-tunnel tests at National Trisonic Aerodynamic Facilities (NTAF) division of
National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL),
Bengaluru
Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
.
DRDO ARM has a range of 100–250 km
which is made to be integrated with
Sukhoi Su-30MKI as its primary test platform, although can be used with
Dassault Mirage 2000,
SEPECAT Jaguar
The SEPECAT Jaguar is an Anglo-French jet attack aircraft originally used by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in the close air support and nuclear strike role. It is still in service with the Indian Air Force.
Originall ...
,
HAL Tejas
The HAL Tejas is an Indian, single engine, delta wing, light multirole fighter designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) in collaboration with Aircraft Research and Design Centre (ARDC) of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for t ...
and
HAL Tejas Mark 2/MWF in future.
According to the then Director of
Research Centre Imarat (RCI),
G. Satheesh Reddy
G. Satheesh Reddy is the Scientific Adviser to Raksha Mantri, which spearheads India's indigenous development of defence systems and technologies. He guides the development of major programmes on missiles
In military terminology, a missile ...
, the missile will feature a
millimetre wave seeker (mmW) transmitting on frequencies of 30
Gigahertz (GHz) and above while capable of lock-on before launch and
lock-on after launch modes.
Mid-course guidance is accomplished through
inertial navigation system
An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity (dire ...
(INS) and two-way
datalink combined with
GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
/
NavIC
The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), with an operational name of NavIC (acronym for 'Navigation with Indian Constellation; also, 'sailor' or 'navigator' in Indian languages), is an autonomous regional satellite navigation s ...
satellite guidance through digital filtering as fall back to correct accumulated errors and a passive homing head (PHH) seeker which is developed by DLRL that can detect radio frequency emissions from 100 km away. PHH is a wide-band receiver system operating within
D band to
J band frequency of the
electromagnetic spectrum
The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of frequencies (the spectrum) of electromagnetic radiation and their respective wavelengths and photon energies.
The electromagnetic spectrum covers electromagnetic waves with frequencies ranging from ...
. Its compact front-end structure is due to the use of
monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology for identification of radiation emitting sources.
The missile is a single-stage, approximately 5.5-metre in length and 600 kg of weight with
cruciform wing
A cruciform wing is a set of four individual wings arranged in the shape of a cross. The cross may take either of two forms; the wings may be equally spaced around the cross-section of the fuselage, lying in two planes at right angles, as on a typ ...
surface to increase high maneuverability and to give constant aerodynamic characteristics similar to
Astra
Astra may refer to:
People
* Astra (name)
Places
* Astra, Chubut, a village in Argentina
* Astra (Isauria), a town of ancient Isauria, now in Turkey
* Astra, one suggested name for a hypothetical fifth planet that became the asteroid belt
Ent ...
BVRAAM
A beyond-visual-range missile (BVR) is an air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) that is capable of engaging at ranges of or beyond. This range has been achieved using dual pulse rocket motors or booster rocket motor and ramjet sustainer motor.
In additi ...
.
It uses pre-fragmented warhead with optical
proximity fuze
A proximity fuze (or fuse) is a Fuze (munitions), fuze that detonates an Explosive material, explosive device automatically when the distance to the target becomes smaller than a predetermined value. Proximity fuzes are designed for targets such ...
and is powered by a dual-
pulsed solid rocket motor made by Premier Explosives Limited (PEL) under
technology transfer
Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform invent ...
from DRDO. The dual-pulsed solid rocket motor produces variable thrust within a range of 0.6 to 2 Mach that reduces the overall reaction time while widening the targeting envelope as well as the engagement capability. DRDO ARM can target mobile integrated
air-defence
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
system as well as
radar station that shutdown to avoid detection.
Development and trials
![Rudram-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Rudram-1.jpg)
Development had begun by April 2012 at Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL).
The project was officially approved in December 2012 with a budget of with project completion by 2017.
The feasibility studies were done in 2012–2013 with the aim is to develop a fully indigenous tactical, anti-radiation capable missile for the
Indian Air force
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks third amongst the air forces of the world. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial w ...
(IAF) which is comparable to
AGM-88E AARGM,
MAR-1
The MAR-1 is an air-to-surface (ASM) and surface-to-surface (SSM) anti-radiation missile (ARM) with GPS/INS capability under development by Brazil's Mectron and the Aerospace Technology and Science Department (Departamento de Ciência e Tecnolog ...
,
Kh-31P and better than
Martel Martel may refer to:
People
* Andre Martel (1946–2016), American politician and businessman
* Anne-Marie Martel (1644–1673), founder of what is now the Congrégation des Sœurs de l’Enfant-Jésus.
* James B. Aguayo-Martel, ophthalmologist ...
or
Kh-25MP.
From 2014, the development of missile picked up interest of the IAF.
As of 2014, missile design and hardware development are in progress with first successful flight trial to happen before year 2017. IAF was initially very concerned with the higher weight and shorter range of new missile compare to the western ones due to the use of bulky Russian made
radio frequency (RF) seekers. IAF at the same time was also negotiating with USA for 1,500 AGM-88E which IAF was planning to induct in the next five years.
The technologies that were developed by DRDO for NGARM are wide-band passive seeker, milli-metric wave active seeker,
radome for the seekers and dual-pulsed
propulsion system which are mostly lessons learnt during the development of
Astra
Astra may refer to:
People
* Astra (name)
Places
* Astra, Chubut, a village in Argentina
* Astra (Isauria), a town of ancient Isauria, now in Turkey
* Astra, one suggested name for a hypothetical fifth planet that became the asteroid belt
Ent ...
and
Barak 8
Barak 8 ( he, בָּרָק, lit. "Lightning"), also known as LR-SAM or as MR-SAM, is an Indo-Israeli jointly developed surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, designed to defend against any type of airborne threat including aircraft, helicopters, ant ...
.
The Captive Flight Trial–1 (CFT–1) of DRDO ARM was completed on April/May 2016 by
No. 20 Squadron of IAF which checked the performance of seeker,
navigation
Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...
and
control system
A control system manages, commands, directs, or regulates the behavior of other devices or systems using control loops. It can range from a single home heating controller using a thermostat controlling a domestic boiler to large industrial c ...
, structural capability and
aerodynamic vibrations while the Drop Flight Trial (DFT) was completed by December 2016 with the missile released by
Sukhoi Su-30MKI at a speed of 0.8
Mach
Mach may refer to Mach number, the speed of sound in local conditions. It may also refer to:
Computing
* Mach (kernel), an operating systems kernel technology
* ATI Mach, a 2D GPU chip by ATI
* GNU Mach, the microkernel upon which GNU Hurd is bas ...
, from 6.5 km altitude. Further carriage flight test was carried out to check mechanical/electrical integration as well as software interfacing of the missile before the maiden flight on 18 January 2018, where the missile was successfully flight tested for the first time on parametres such as auto-launch sequence, store separation, control guidance, aerodynamics, thermal batteries, airframe and propulsion without a seeker which were all proven successful.
On 25 January 2019, NGARM was fired from a Sukhoi Su-30MKI over
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between ...
off the coast of
Odisha
Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...
that hit the designated target with a high degree of accuracy. The missile achieved an accuracy within 10 m
CEP
''Boletus edulis'' (English: cep, penny bun, porcino or porcini) is a basidiomycete fungus, and the type species of the genus ''Boletus''. Widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere across Europe, Asia, and North America, it does not occu ...
covering a range of 100 km.
The developmental test proved the performance of seeker, structural integrity of the missile, correct functioning of navigation and control system while validation of aerodynamic capability.
The missile can strike at distances double the intended range depending upon the altitude. NGARM will further undergo series of carriage and release flight trials to check the performance of seekers against a different range of targets.
Next trials during the period of July to August 2019 will be conducted initially to check the performance of indigenous passive seeker developed by DLRL with further test for an active seeker at later stage.
While the crucial sensor technology is yet to be fully mastered by DRDO, the IAF wants fast track development of NGARM due to urgent requirement of newer anti-radiation missile. NGARM developmental trials will resume from 2020 after a gap of two years.
The DRDO Anti-Radiation Missile or NGARM now officially named Rudram-1 was successfully test-fired from Integrated Test Range (ITR), Balasore on 9 October 2020. DRDO is planning final test flight between 28 and 29 December 2021 before moving Rudram-1 for serial production from 2022.
Induction
According to report, the plan is to make the missile a part of the Air Force by 2022 after conducting six to seven more tests. The missile's passive homing head can detect, classify and engage targets over a wide band of frequencies as programmed.
Production
Indian Air Force started working on a proposal to place ₹1,400 crore order for Rudram-1. It was already under review in
Ministry of Defence
{{unsourced, date=February 2021
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...
(MoD) and awaiting final call from senior officials.
Future development
DRDO is planning to bring further software improvements to handle a larger variety of targets under various operational conditions while developing a separate ground-based variant to be launched from mobile launcher.
DRDO is developing Rudram-2 with a range of 300 km and air to ground version Rudram-3 with 550 km range.
See also
*
Hormoz-2
*
AGM-88 HARM
*
ALARM missile
An alarm device is a mechanism that gives an audible, visual or other kind of alarm signal to alert someone to a problem or condition that requires urgent attention.
Alphabetical musical instruments
Etymology
The word ''alarm'' comes from th ...
*
Kh-31
The Kh-31 (russian: Kha (Cyrillic), Х-31; AS-17 'Krypton') is a Russian air-to-surface missile carried by aircraft such as the MiG-29 or Su-27. It is capable of Mach number, Mach 3.5 and was the first supersonic anti-ship missile that could be la ...
*
MAR-1
The MAR-1 is an air-to-surface (ASM) and surface-to-surface (SSM) anti-radiation missile (ARM) with GPS/INS capability under development by Brazil's Mectron and the Aerospace Technology and Science Department (Departamento de Ciência e Tecnolog ...
*
YJ-91
References
{{Indian missiles
External links
Technical:
DRDO Technology Focus : Warhead for Missiles, Torpedoes and Rockets
Air-to-surface missiles
Anti-radiation missiles of India
Guided missiles of India
Defence Research and Development Organisation