News Brief
Kaveri Derivative Engine Gets Rs 723 Crore Funding To Power India’s Unmanned Combat Aircraft
GTX-35VS Kaveri Engine - representative image (Jagan Pillariseti/Wikipedia)
The Central government has sanctioned Rs 723.59 crore towards two projects under the Kaveri Derivative Engine (KDE) programme, intended to power India’s upcoming unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), the Parliament was told on Friday (25 July).
In a written reply to a question by BJP MP Tejasvi Surya in the Lok Sabha, Union Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth said that two Kaveri derivative engine projects have been sanctioned by the Centre.
"Kaveri Derivative Engine (KDE), is the power plant for the remotely piloted strike aircraft (IUCAV aircraft). In this regard two projects have been sanctioned namely Flightworthy Kaveri Dry Engine Development with the cost of Rs. 472.42 Cr and Technology Demonstration of Kaveri Derivative 'Dry' Engine with the cost of Rs. 251.17 Cr," the minister said.
The Kaveri Derivative Engine is a non-afterburning adaptation of the original Kaveri engine, which has been repurposed for unmanned aircraft after falling short of thrust requirements for the Tejas fighter.
The Kaveri engine dry variant is expected to generate around 49–51 kN of thrust.
He added that the government has sanctioned projects worth over Rs 29,550 crore to DRDO during the last three years.
The minister said that DRDO has established 15 DRDO Industry Academia Centres of Excellence (DIA-CoE) across the country at IISc Banglore, various IITs and Central/State Universities to encourage directed research for developing new technologies for defence and security in identified areas.
Further, several world class test facilities have now been opened for industries in DRDO labs and necessary SOP has been formulated, the minister said.
He added that DRDO has launched Technology Development Fund (TDF) which provides financial support to the Indian industries for the design development of innovative defence products.
