Address at the Handing Over of the First Communication Control Block of Samyukta to the Army Elsec

SAMYUKTA SYSTEM AND BEYOND

I am indeed delighted to participate in this important event of handing over of the Integrated Electronic Warfare System SAMYUKTA Communication and Control block to the Indian Army. My greetings to the members of DRDO, Department of Defence production and Indian Army who are partners in this mission. India has got the capability to design develop and produce integrated electronic warfare system to meet the mission requirements specified by the user. This system is uniquely configured for the frequencies from HF to Millimeter wave for reconnaissance, direction finding, and position fixing, listing, prioritizing and jamming of adversaries' emissions.

I congratulate the team effort displayed by DRDO, BEL, ECIL and Corps of Signals of Indian Army in realizing this state-of-the-art EW System in a relatively short time, inspite of many denials. Now that the basic building blocks are indigenously available, user driven multiple systems can be evolved. I was thinking what thoughts I can share with you on this occasion. I have chosen the topic "SAMYUKTA SYSTEM AND BEYOND".

Technological Scenario for the year 2020

The future technologies for national security would be required to be developed and deployed in the areas of strategic electronics, strategic aeronautics and strategic astronautics. Global situational awareness is created by the components, devices and systems of strategic electronics carried not only onboard conventional platforms on land, sea, underwater and air but also on board manned Trans-atmospheric vehicles and earth satellites in low earth and geo-stationary orbits.

What is crucial is that almost each and every strategic technology will be dual purpose in that they serve concurrently the needs of economic development of the nation. Thus the technologies for national security in strategic electronics (sensors, super computers, fiber optics, Information and communication technology etc.) for command and control would also serve the needs of national information network, both space and land based required for forest mapping, soil classification and mapping, monitoring of surface water etc. Since they are dual use technologies it is most likely that they are denied at the most crucial time.

R&D, Industry and User partnership

In the light of the above, it is essential that the Indian armed forces in partnership with DRDO and Department of Defence Production and Supplies realize total self-reliance in critical electronic systems including components and subsystems for ensuring system availability at critical times. Realization and fielding of SAMYUKTA is a very crucial step in this direction. This has been accomplished through the creation of partnership right from the commencement of the programme and concurrent development and production of the system by DRDO, BEL and ECIL with constant interface with the user agency namely Corps of Signals. Also this programme has been structured in such a way that the specifications had been constantly reviewed and the present hardware, software implementation meets the current needs of the armed forces though the programme was first conceived in the year 1994. The programme is high end software intensive and Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC) & Tata Power Company Ltd (TPCL) took the challenge of developing integrated real time command and control software having 10 million lines of code even though financially it was not as attractive as the conventional business software produced by many of our large companies. Development and production of super components by 40 small industries under CODE programme, enabled quick realization of the components indigenously overcoming the denials.

Law of development

I was studying the development patterns and the dynamics of connectivity between nations, especially in trade and business. As you all know, the world has a few developed countries and many developing countries. What is the dynamics between them and what connects them? Developed country has to market their products in a competitive way to different countries to remain as developed country. The developing country to get transformed into developed country; they too have to market their products in other countries in a competitive way. Competitiveness has three dimensions: quality of the product, cost effectiveness and supply in time. Indeed this dynamics of competitiveness in marketing of products by developing and developed countries determines the law of development. We have to see our integrated missions for national development in this light.

Special features

It is heartening to note that the SAMYUKTA system uses state-of-the-art sub systems like fast scan receivers, high accuracy direction finding systems, jam resistance communication systems and re-configurable display system. Non-com segment of SAMYUKTA uses high-tech super components, broadband DF system, high power jammers and high accuracy servo systems. One of the typical items which was denied for the programme was CAM (Content Addressable Memory). This was designed and fabricated by SITAR as an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) in its foundry. Both public and private sector institutions have produced number of such components indigenously. This has been a major contribution to the industry by SAMYUKTA.

Initially it was thought that shelters for SAMYUKTA would be imported. Later with the active participation of R&D engineers and private sector shelter manufacturers, EMI shielded shelters have been manufactured with stringent specifications and have been used by the programme. These shelters will have multiple applications wherever EMI / EMC becomes a major operational issue.

Management structure:

The management structure of the programme was exclusively designed for implementing the programme to realise high performance, high quality system with dynamic qualitative requirements (QR) in a cost effective manner within a prescribed time frame. I am happy to note that the structure has brought synergy between DRDO, Army and the production agency leading to delivery of a complex high-tech EW system to the services for the first time, meeting the international standards. I am sure this experience can be replicated in development, production and deployment of many other systems for our armed forces.

Self-reliance:

Electronic Warfare is a force multiplier system, which needs high-level secrecy for maintaining surprise against adversary actions. In such a situation, it is essential that the system design, architecture and deployment knowledge is generated within the country and maintained as a closely guarded information by the services. This is essential for ensuring tactical and strategic advantage for our armed forces during an operation. Hence I would recommend that for such force multiplier systems, Army should demand totally indigenous product rather than providing the entire specifications and thereby the QR to the foreign vendor. Our industry and DRDO should also gear up to meet the requirements of our armed forces with speed, quality and economy. This will also ensure life time product support and cost effective midlife upgrades for the services which can never be achieved from foreign sources. Preplanned product improvement strategy adopted by the design team has ensured delivery of contemporary systems to the services which will ensure prevention of early obsolescence.

Conclusion

During the last two decades right from the development of AJANTA and the fielding of SAMYUKTA now, as a country we have graduated in the development and production of complex electronic warfare systems required by our armed forces. Now is the time to take major decisions in this area so that we can maintain our competence level and ensure provision of contemporary future systems to the armed forces. In this direction I would suggest the following:

(a) DRDO should consider conceptualization of future systems with flexible architecture, which are networked across the services thus ensuring total force multiplication.

(b) BEL should create a world-class high quality infrastructure at Hyderabad to meet ever-increasing requirements of the services for the EW systems. Eventually they should be global players and aggressively export state-of the art EW systems. Private entrepreneurs should come forward to achieve near 100% indigenous content in the systems.

(c) DRDO and EW production agency should visualize the futuristic EW scenario through comprehensive simulation studies and work on demonsratable systems for user evaluation, specification modification and deployment.

(d) Due to high tech and software intensive nature of systems there is a need to create a dedicated EW Quality Assurance agency for the all the three services. Also the creation of a national EW test range at Hyderabad would be appropriate for faster evaluation and delivery of high performance systems.

(e) The present day EW systems are software intensive. The software needs constant upgrades based on user experience. A standing mechanism needs to be created for ensuring meticulous software maintenance and upgrades for promoting higher level of system operational efficiency.

(f) In view of our Nuclear Doctrine of 'no first use' it is essential to study how synchronized action between EW systems of the Army SAMYUKTA, Naval EW system SANGRAHA and Air Force TEMPEST can prevent the entry of special warheads in our territory.

I wish all success to the Army, DRDO and BEL teams in their synergetic march towards a self-reliant EW regime. 
My best wishes.