India’s MoD and Bharat Electronics sign SDR-Tac procurement contract

The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded a contract to Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) for the supply of Software Defined Radio Tactical (SDR-Tac).

The contract is valued more than Rs10bn (approximately $136.97m).

Defence Research & Development Organisation’s (DRDO) Defence Electronics Applications Laboratory (DEAL) has jointly designed and developed the SDR-Tac in partnership with domestic agencies and industry.

The consortium of domestic agencies and industry include Weapons and Electronics Systems Engineering Establishment (WESEE), BEL, Centre for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics (CAIR) and the Indian Navy.

The SDR-Tac is a four channel multi-mode and multi band, ship borne system that supports the operation of all the four channels covering very/ ultra-high frequency (V/UHF) and lower band (L Band) at the same time.

The 19in rack mountable system is designed to serve ‘ship-to-ship, ship-to-shore and ship-to-air voice and data communication’.

In addition, it accommodates different narrow band and wide band waveforms including V/UHF and L-Band MANET waveform.

It has already completed exhaustive harbour phase and sea phase trials in 2018.

The Indian MoD said in a statement: “Interoperability trials were also successfully carried out with all other form factors covering Airborne SDR-AR on board Dornier Aircraft, SDR-Tac on board INS Kirch in sailing mode, SDR-Manpack and SDR-Handheld.

“All the aspects were evaluated successfully by all user agencies of Navy and clearance was accorded for procurement.”

BEL is already engaged in the supply SDR-Naval Combat, while SDR-Air is under user evaluation trial.