Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a national conference on ‘NextGen IT for NextGen Indian Defence 2009’ here, Saraswat said the country has embarked on a project to develop a UCAV or a drone indigenously that would not only detect enemy lines, but also fire on identified targets.

DRDO is also working with Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) that is spearheading this initiative to develop a high altitude, medium endurance UCAV.
It could also have partners from the industry playing a role in its development. “The control/operations of the UCAV will rest at multiple Command Control Centres (CCC), that will be geographically distributed at different locations, if one is attacked during conflict, then you can switch over to another” Saraswat said.

Currently, the ADE is in the process of conducting experiments on the development of a medium altitude long endurance UAV. “The first flight took place 10 days ago. It was an experimental flight and we are learning a lot from this experiment,” he added.
However, this UAV codenamed Rustom ran into rough weather with the first trial of the prototype at Taneja Aerospace and Aviation Ltd resulting in a crash on November 16 near Hosur.