The India defence machinery has been working overtime to cope up with the multiple security threats and sure the safety of it citizens. India’s defence spending for the fiscal year 2008 was fixed at $26.5 billion, which was less than 2 per cent of its GDP.
However, recent security breaches have led to an increase of nearly 50 per cent in defence spending taking to $40 billion or more. Many of India’s programmes programmes, such as Integrated Missile Defence Programmes, electronics-intensive programmes are driving the demand for security products, installations, etc. Analog mixed signals, analog power, memory and logic / FPGA are segments mostly benefiting from higher investments in the defence sector.
The Indian defence sector is expected to sign many significant deals during the forecast period for procurement of more that 125 multi-role fighters, long-range artillery, a variety of helicopters and long-range multi-role fighters, long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft.
The military spending on all this is expected to reach $ 30 billion by 2012. This largely signifies enormous growth opportunities for security players in the Indian industry.
At the same time, the introduction of the defence-offset policy is expected to encourage local manufacturing in the defence segment, which has hitherto remained insignificant. Increase in local defence manufacturing aimed at making Indian defence self reliant in the long term is expected to be a significant growth trigger for the semiconductor total available market from this segment.
Unlike in the past, the private sector is expected to play a significant role in meeting defence requirements.
Race for modernisation
According to Anees Ahmed, President and CEO, Mistral Solutions, “Security concerns have spurred the need for developing the technology infrastructure in domestic and international defence arena. Defence technology R&D stands to gain significant funding in the coming years. The Indian Armed Forces are undergoing a modernization program that seeks to place it on par with the best in the world; resulting in the fresh requirements and R&D efforts for electronics-intensive solutions for various defence applications.”
Mistral has been offering solutions for complex and demanding defence applications since its inception in 1997. Mistral offers systems engineering, design services and COTS products, delivering high-performance, data acquisition and signal processing solutions for electronics warfare, naval, airborne and radar applications, Ahmed informed.
Ahmed informed that a couple of solutions that Mistral provides are 8-Tiger SHARC VME Board (V8TS) and Radar Target Simulator (RTS-RF). The award-winning The V8TS from Mistral is an extremely powerful dual sub-system product, consisting of digital signal processing and control processing on a single 6U-VME platform. Target applications include radar signal processing, image processing and sonar signal processing.
The RTS-RF is capable of simulating target echo in the various radar bands. RTS-RF system consists of a front-end RTS system with a DRFM module housed in an Industrial PC. Target applications include target simulation and ECM (Electronic Counter Measure) training.
Mistral has the ability to engineer complex solutions that require the integration of COTS and custom-developed components. Some of the system engineering projects executed by Mistral are Digital receiver sub-system for electronics warfare application, data communication system for naval application, airborne RSP System etc, Ahmed said.
The company also recently launched the Smartvue, a next-generation wireless network video surveillance solution. Based on the latest 802.11n WLAN standard and true peer-to-peer video management, this IP surveillance solution offers long-range wireless capability coupled with high quality video and audio with global remote video management and access.
The Mistral Smartvue solution can scale from a small set-up, consisting of two camera/single NVR, to multi-location/multiple-NVR solutions. It is an ideal video surveillance solution for government, defence, industries, education and research, commercial establishments, corporate, hospitality, retail and residences, Ahmed added.
