Lucknow: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Israel Aerospace Industries Limited (IAI) and Dynamatic Technologies Limited (DTL) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for marketing, manufacturing and selling of IAI's unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Indian potential customers such as Indian Defence Forces, Paramilitary Forces and Central Armed Police Forces at DefExpo 2020 in Lucknow on Wednesday.
The MoU has been signed between HAL's Executive Director (Corporate Planning) Sanjiv Shukla, Eli Alfassi, Executive Vice President, Marketing for IAI and Arvind Mishra, Executive Director & Global COO Hydraulics and Homeland Security for DTL in the presence of HAL's CMD R Madhavan and senior executives of HAL, IAI and DTL.
Speaking on the occasion Madhavan said that "The collaboration will provide an excellent opportunity to HAL to expand its product offerings to Defence Customers, absorb critical technologies and strengthen the Aerospace Ecosystem in the country, especially for UAVs".
The collaboration will provide an excellent opportunity to HAL to expand its product offerings to Defence Customers, absorb critical technologies and strengthen the Aerospace Ecosystem in the country, especially for UAVs: HAL's CMD R Madhavan
IAI's President and CEO Nimrod Sheffer said "We are delighted to sign the strategic agreement with our partners, HAL and DTL. India is an important strategic market for UAVs and I am confident of IAI's extensive experience and the technological capabilities of HAL and DTL will lead to significant advancements in the field."
Dynamatic Technologies Limited's CEO & Managing Director Dr Udayant Malhoutra, said, "This is a Global PPP between HAL, our partner for over two decades, IAI a world leader in UAV technology who we have been teaming with since 2017. This collaboration will provide a boost to Make-in-India and we are committed to establishing a broad technological and industrial eco-system within the country".
Presently, UAVs are playing a significant role in wars and other tactical missions such as Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). In the coming years, Indian Defence Forces are likely to induct a large number of UAVs to meet such requirements. HAL has the best capability and infrastructure available in India to manufacture world-class and battle-proven UAVs of IAI. IAI as design authority, HAL as Principal Contractor and DTL as Principle sub-contractor will complement each other to provide best in class 'Make-in-India' UAVs to Indian Defence Forces.
HAL as a long-time partner of IAI is involved in the depot-level maintenance of all the MALE and Short Range class of UAVs supplied by IAI to the Indian Defence Forces since 2004. Taking the HAL-IAI collaboration one step ahead, under the scope of this MoU, this partnership would be the first in the country to manufacture IAI designed UAVs in India like Short Range Tactical class having long endurance. This collaboration will enhance technology sharing and business partnership between India and Israel.