Navy Chief reviews operational readiness at sea

DRDO, Army jointly developed First Indigenous 9mm Machine Pistol

India’s first indigenous 9mm Machine Pistol has been jointly developed by DRDO and Indian Army. Infantry School, Mhow and DRDO’s Armament Research & Development Establishment (ARDE), Pune have designed and developed this weapon using their respective expertise in the complementary areas. The weapon has been developed in a record time of four months. The Machine Pistol fires the in-service 9mm ammunition and sports an upper receiver made from aircraft grade Aluminium and lower receiver from carbon fibre. 3D Printing process has been used in designing and prototyping of various parts including trigger components made by metal 3D printing.

The weapon has huge potential in Armed forces as personal weapon for heavy weapon detachments, commanders, tank and aircraft crews, drivers/ dispatch riders, radio/ radar operators, Closed Quarter Battle, counter insurgency and counter terrorism operations etc. This is also likely to find huge employability with the central and state police organizations as well as VIP protection duties and Policing. The Machine Pistol is likely to have production cost under rupees 50000 each and has potential for exports.

The weapon is aptly named “Asmi” meaning “Pride”, “Self-Respect" & “Hard Work”.

Keeping the Prime Minister’s vision of Aatmnirbhar Bharat in view, this small step will pave way for self-reliance and it is expected that the Services and Paramilitary Forces (PMFs) will induct this expeditiously.

HattoriX AI Enabled Target Acquisition System concluded demonstrations in Europe

HattoriX, the innovative fire support system launched by Elbit Systems at the end of 2018, recently completed a series of demonstrations for eight Western European countries.

Operational with the Israeli Defense Force since 2019, HattoriX is a passive/ active target acquisition systems that uses Artificial Intelligence to enable Forward Observers and similarly tasked tactical teams to close sensor-toshooter loops with three intuitive touches on a screen: a touch to acquire the target, a touch to issue the precise target coordinates, and a touch to send all of the target information to the fire systems.

The capability demonstrations in Europe were performed in urban locations and in open fields, in both day and night, simulating a variety of operational scenarios. During the demonstrations, users had the opportunity to experiment, first hand, with the capability to passively and rapidly acquire Category 1 targets (Target Location error of few a meters), facilitating effective engagement of Time Sensitive Targets.

Featuring payload agnostic mission computer that runs proprietary software, photogrammetry algorithm and an Augmented Reality (AR) overlay of real-time C2 data, HattoriX performs automatic fusion of Geographical Information System (GIS) database, pre-loaded targets data, payload’s visual feed, and C2 information, thereby enabling the tactical user to intuitively issue CAT-1 targets without using any emitters, and seamlessly feed acquired targets and additional target information (image, video, description) into any Battle Management System. Interfacing with any Electro-Optical payload of choice, HattoriX is comprised of a Goniometer, a mission computer, a touchscreen display unit and a lightweight tripod. HattoriX also includes a remotecontrolled configuration for extended force protection. Users include FOs, Forward Air Controllers (FAC), Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTAC), reconnaissance teams, field intelligence and Special Forces.