Indigenously developed micro missile system Bhargavastra has been successfully tested at the Gopalpur Seaward firing range on 12th and 13th January. The Indian Army Air Defence and Guided Missile School and Centre is situated at Gopalpur, Odisha.

The micro missile system has been developed to counter the threat of swarm drone attack. The successful tests were carried out in the presence of the senior Army officers.

The Bhargavastra has not been inducted into the Indian Army as the system has to undergo further tests and after the Army approves the system the government of India will decide to induct it or not.

Developer of the Bhargavastra weapon system

The Bhargavastra has been developed by the Economic Explosives Ltd (EEL), a subsidiary of the Nagpur based Solar Group.

It has been designed and developed indigenously and is said to be an effective low cost weapon system against swarm drone attack.

What is Swarm Drone Attack?

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone is remotely controlled aerial objects which can be used for multiple purposes. The use of drones in the battlefield was first used by the Americans to kill top leaders of Al-Qaeda and Talibans in Afghanistan.

The swarm drone attack refers to the use of multiple drones controlled by a single controller to attack the enemy.

The swarm drone as a weapon was recently used by the Iranians to successfully breach the famous Iron Dome anti- missile system of Israel.

The Ukrainians and the Russians are regularly using the swarm drone attack with loiter munitions capability to attack each other.

The swarm drone attack is very effective because the use of a sizable number of drones confuses the enemy’s radars.

The drones are comparatively cheaper and the existing counter defence weapon systems against the drones- the missiles are very expensive in comparison.

Hence many countries are searching for a cost effective anti drone weapon system.

Feature of the Bhargavastra weapon system

The Bhargavastra weapon system has a range of around 5- 6 kilometers and can neutralise multiple drones through micro munitions.
The weapon system can be mounted on mobile platforms for rapid deployment in all terrains including desert and high altitude areas.
It is a multi-layered weapon system that features a Command-and-Control Centre equipped with advanced C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence) technology.
The radar of the system can detect unmanned aerial vehicles beyond 5 km and is capable of identifying targets as small as 0.01 square meters.
The weapon system can track,engage 64 targets and destroy the target within 16 seconds of its detection.
The weapon system has micro missile kill capabilities. The missiles launched by the system have lock-in capabilities on the target and can fire missiles at an interval of one second.
The weapon system is particularly effective against swarm drones which are resistant to traditional jamming or spoofing techniques employed against aerial threats.