Chennai: Last month, on board a defence vessel at INS Adyar in Chennai Port Trust, a surveillance camera detected unknown moving objects in the deep sea from a distance of 16 kms! There is no need to panic. This was just a demonstration of its technology by Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) on a request from the Indian armed forces.
Sources told DC that CVRDE’s MUNTRA-S (Tracked Unmanned Group Vehicle for Surveillance) was shipped aboard a defence vessel on Sept. 14 and its surveillance payloads have detected the moving objects upto a distance of 16 kms and sent the information to the base control vehicle. Some of the top ranking officials of South Sector of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and other border security forces have witnessed and showed keen interest in using the technology.
CVRDE scientists say MUNTRA-S can be used by border forces and to guard vital installations. It is designed for unmanned surveillance of a variety of ground targets, including crawling man to heavy vehicles under all weather conditions. It is developed on the battle proven amphibious BMP-2 tracked armoured vehicle, which enables MUNTRA to be deployed for unmanned surveillance missions on all types of battle environments, during both day and night.
“Not only detecting the objects, it will transmit information about its size, type of the object, GPS location, speed at which objecting is approaching. The best part is it can detect 99 objects simultaneously and do 360 degree scan”, scientists said.
