Defence Minister Rajnath Singh launched a startup competition on Tuesday, under which innovators, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and startups will have to find new ideas for 11 specific challenges of the Indian defence sector.
The Defence Ministry said that four of the 11 subjects of the Defense India Startup Challenge 4 (DISC4) were autonomous underwater swarm drones, curtain entry radars, lack of radar cross-sections of naval warships and artificial intelligence-based satellite image analysis and reduction.
If the idea of a startup, an innovator or an MSME in DISC4 is accepted by the ministry, the entity will be given an innovation grant by the ministry to develop the prototype.
The ministry also launched the Product Management Approach (PMA) guidelines on Tuesday, which “will lead to prototype development for a market-ready product”, the ministry said.
It added that the PMA guidelines would monitor the milestones of product development achieved by startup challenge winners against the requirement set by the Armed Forces, Ordnance Factory Board or Defense Public Sector Undertakings.
The statement said Mr. Singh has also started an initiative called iDEX4Fauji, which will support innovations identified by members of the Indian Armed Forces and “promote innovative innovative ideas from troops / field formations”.
The defense minister said that the iDEX4Fauji initiative would help entrepreneurs connect with “grassroots innovators” who secure their borders.
In addition to the above four challenges, other challenges in DISC4 include topics such as forecasting, preventive and prescriptive machine monitoring; Super resolution to improve spatial resolution; Forecasting and forecasting atmospheric visibility; The computer generates targets for virtual training.
Some other challenges are remote real-time flight health monitoring of aircraft; Target detection in chaotic environments; Multi-frequency time-division multiple access based wideband SATCOM (satellite communication) modem.
After the DISC4 event was actually launched, the minister tweeted that the startup ecosystem and innovation enjoy a symbiotic relationship and they thrive in the presence of another.
IDEX4Fauzi is the first of its kind initiative to support innovations identified by members of the Indian Armed Forces and it will handle affordable innovation ideas from the creation of troops / field. More than 1.3 million service personnel are working in the field and on the borders, handling extremely difficult situations and handling equipment. They may have many ideas and innovative inventions to improve such devices. There was no mechanism to support such new inventions.
The IDEX4 military will open this window and allow troops to be part of the innovation process and to be recognized and rewarded. The Service Headquarters will provide support to troops and field formations throughout the country to ensure maximum participation.
Under the Defense India Startup Challenge (DISC) 4, eleven challenges from the Armed Forces, OFB and DPSU were opened up equally to potential startups, innovators, MSMEs to provide innovative ideas on technologies to provide. Is similar to that found for use in the defense sector.
The challenges are as follows:
- Independent underwater group drone
- Predictive, preventive and instructional machine monitoring
- Great resolution to improve location resolution
- AI based satellite image analysis
- Atmospheric Visibility Prediction and Forecast
- Computer-ready goals for virtual training
- Remote real time health monitoring of crew members on board the aircraft
- MF-TDMA Wideband Setcom Modem
- Radar in the middle of a bunch of leaves
- RCS reduction of naval warships
- Target detection in pallet environment
To develop a ‘right product and product right’, the DIO has adopted a product management approach to simulate developing a prototype of the finished product for the market. These guidelines are the first of their kind and have been issued by the Ministry of Defense to monitor the critical stage of product development achieved by IDEX winners for the requirements set by the Services / DPSU / OFB.
The IDEX initiative of the Department of Defense Production was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April 2018 with the objective of encouraging and developing innovations in the Indian defence sector and creating an ecosystem where startups, MSMEs and individual innovators Indian Can easily interact with defence installations and provide the latest technological innovations to specific challenges experienced in the operational environment through co-development and co-production of innovative solutions. The IDEX initiative is executed by Section 8 company of Defense Innovation Organization, DPSU, BEL and HAL.