Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed an advanced chaff technology to safeguard Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter jets against hostile radar threats.

This comes a few months after the DRDO developed a similar technology for naval ships to protect them from missile attacks.

The technology was developed in three variants, namely Short Range Chaff Rocket (SRCR), Medium Range Chaff Rocket (MRCR) and Long Range Chaff Rocket (LRCR) to meet the navy's qualitative requirements, according to the defence ministry.

The Indian Navy conducted trials of all three variants in the Arabian Sea on Indian Naval Ship and found the performance satisfactory.

The advanced chaff technology has been developed by DRDO's defence laboratory situated in Rajasthan's Jodhpur.

It was developed in collaboration with high energy materials research laboratory in Pune to meet qualitative requirements of the IAF. The Air Force has started the process of induction of this technology after completion of successful user trials, according to DRDO.

This advanced chaff technology is an electronic countermeasure technology used by militaries worldwide to protect their assets, like naval vessels and aircraft. It protects the assets from radar and radio frequency.

In case of naval ships, chaff rockets are deployed in the air, which act as multiple targets for missile guidance system.

The importance of this development lies in the fact that very less quantity of chaff material deployed in the air acts as decoy to deflect enemy’s missiles for safety of the ships, the defence ministry said in a release.

Both, Chaffs and Flares are used to as defensive countermeasure to confuse the radar from detecting a vessel, or deflect the missiles from the target.

But there is a major difference between the two. While flares, when fired, generate a strong infrared source to attract heat-seeking missiles, chaff is used to misguide radar-tracking weapons.

Chaff is composed of many small aluminium or zinc coated fibres. It will be stored on-board the aircraft as cartridges.

The successful development of Advanced Chaff Technology by DLJ is another step towards Atmanirbhar Bharat, the ministry further said in a release.

Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh has lauded DRDO, IAF and the industry for indigenous development of this critical technology, terming it as one more step of DRDO towards ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’ in strategic defence technologies.

Secretary Department of Defence R&D and Chairman DRDO Dr G Satheesh Reddy congratulated the teams associated with the successful development of this advanced technology that will further strengthen the Indian Air Force.

Image source: Republic news