Andhra Pradesh: DRDO’s Rs 25 crore anti-drone technology to safeguard Tirupati temple

TIRUPATI: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) will become the first temple administration in the country to deploy the Defence Research and Development Organisation's (DRDO) anti-drone technology to safeguard the iconic Lord Venkateswara temple at Tirumala.
Following the terror attack on an Air Force base in Jammu in June in which a drone was used, DRDO arranged a demonstration of its anti-drone system at Kolar in Karnataka for all the three services on July 6. TTD vigilance and security wing chief, Gopinath Jatti, also attended the demonstration with the representatives of various police departments from across the country.
The DRDO system, which would involve detection, jamming and countermeasures, is estimated to cost Rs 25 crore a piece.
But it would be made available at Rs 22 crore a piece if the purchase order is for 100 systems or more.

DRDO, which has designated the defence PSU Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) to manufacture and market it's anti drone systems for now, is also in talks with some top companies for transfer of technology partners to scale up production and bring down costs.
The system comes with a detection capability of up to 4 km with "soft kill" options by way of radio frequency jamming that disables the drone’s communication and GPS and neutralises remote locating system. Both these options have a range of 3 km.
The system also offers the "hard kill" option, in which it physically detects, targets and destroys small drones in the range of 150 m to 1 km.
Following the advice of TTD's chairman and executive officer Dr K S Jawahar Reddy, the vigilance and security wing is hoping to deploy the system within the earliest possible time frame. TTD sources said BEL officials would soon inspect the Tirumala temple and its security cordons.