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By:

Commodore S.L. Deshmukh

31 October 2024 at 8:30:19 am

The Beam That Blinds the Drone

As cheap drones reshape the battlefield, India’s T-SHUL BEAM points to a future in which electronic warfare may matter as much as firepower The drone has definitively become the weapon of choice for the modern battlefield. Cheap, expendable and increasingly autonomous, unmanned aerial vehicles can now threaten troops, armour, airfields and critical infrastructure without requiring the attacker to risk a pilot. Their proliferation has created a corresponding demand for counter-drone systems...

The Beam That Blinds the Drone

As cheap drones reshape the battlefield, India’s T-SHUL BEAM points to a future in which electronic warfare may matter as much as firepower The drone has definitively become the weapon of choice for the modern battlefield. Cheap, expendable and increasingly autonomous, unmanned aerial vehicles can now threaten troops, armour, airfields and critical infrastructure without requiring the attacker to risk a pilot. Their proliferation has created a corresponding demand for counter-drone systems that can respond quickly and at a cost proportionate to the threat. This is where beam-based anti-drone technology enters the picture. Broadly, such systems fall into two categories. Hard-kill systems use concentrated laser energy to physically damage or destroy a drone. Soft-kill systems, by contrast, use radio-frequency or electromagnetic energy to disrupt the electronic links that allow a drone to communicate, navigate and transmit information. Sophisticated Weaponry Hard-kill laser systems focus an intense beam of light on a vulnerable part of an incoming UAV - its carbon-fibre structure, control surfaces, battery or other critical components. The concentrated energy rapidly heats the target, potentially burning through its structure or disabling optical sensors and bringing the aircraft down. India’s DRDO has demonstrated a 30kW laser system, while Israel’s Rafael has developed the Lite Beam system. Soft-kill systems take a different route. Rather than physically destroying the aircraft, they interfere with the electronic architecture that keeps it airborne. Directional radio-frequency energy can disrupt command-and-control links, video feeds, telemetry and satellite-navigation signals such as GPS or other GNSS services. Depending on the drone and the nature of the disruption, the aircraft may be forced to land, return to its launch point or lose control. It is in this category that the T-SHUL BEAM system developed by Indian defence company IG Defence deserves attention. T-SHUL BEAM is a man-portable, directional counter-drone system designed for tactical deployment. Its multi-band radio-frequency architecture is intended to target several of the links on which unmanned aerial systems depend, including command-and-control, telemetry, video transmission and GNSS navigation. Its directional configuration allows an operator to concentrate electronic countermeasures on a particular aerial target rather than indiscriminately radiating energy across a large area. That matters on a battlefield where the warning time against a small UAV or first-person-view drone may be measured in seconds. The appeal of such a system is therefore not simply that it can counter a drone. It is that it can potentially bring counter-drone capability closer to the soldier and to the tactical edge. Large counter-UAS installations have their place, particularly around fixed and high-value assets. But forward units require systems that can move with them, be deployed rapidly and operate against small, low-cost unmanned platforms without imposing the logistical burden associated with conventional weapons. The T-SHUL BEAM’s significance also lies in its proposed integration with an artificial-intelligence-enabled battle-management architecture. IG Drones, the original equipment manufacturer, has stated that T-SHUL BEAM has been integrated with GRID, its indigenous AI-powered platform. The GRID architecture is intended to bring sensors, intelligence systems, unmanned platforms and command elements into a common operational framework. The attraction of such integration is obvious. Countering drones is increasingly less about a single weapon and more about the speed of the kill chain: detecting a threat, identifying it, deciding what response is appropriate and directing that response before the target disappears. An AI-enabled command architecture can potentially improve situational awareness, facilitate real-time threat detection and coordinate different systems operating simultaneously. This is particularly relevant as drone warfare evolves from isolated attacks towards increasingly complex and potentially swarming operations. A battlefield crowded with drones cannot be managed effectively if every sensor and weapon operates as a separate island. The advantage will increasingly belong to forces capable of turning disparate streams of information into a coherent picture and responding at machine speed. The T-SHUL BEAM’s reported demonstration at Pokhran represents another step in India’s attempt to build a domestic ecosystem spanning drones, counter-drones, artificial intelligence and electronic warfare. Counter-drone warfare is likely to be a recurring requirement rather than a niche capability. Importing every component of such an ecosystem would leave India vulnerable to supply-chain disruptions, technology restrictions and foreign-exchange pressures. Indigenous development, even when undertaken by relatively small private-sector companies, can broaden the country’s technological base and give the armed forces greater freedom to adapt systems to their operational requirements. Economics of the Contest Yet the real measure of any counter-drone system will ultimately be operational rather than promotional. Electronic warfare is inherently a contest between countermeasure and counter-countermeasure. Drone designers can alter frequencies, communications protocols, navigation methods and levels of autonomy. A system that is effective against one generation of drones may require modification against the next. The battlefield, in other words, will remain a technological arms race. The economics of the contest nevertheless favour directed-energy and electronic-warfare solutions. A conventional interceptor expends a missile or projectile against each target. A beam-based system can, subject to its power supply, engagement envelope and other operational constraints, engage targets without expending conventional ammunition. The marginal cost of an interception can consequently be dramatically lower. The beam also travels at effectively the speed of light, removing the flight time associated with kinetic interceptors. In densely populated areas or around sensitive infrastructure, bringing down a drone with a projectile can create its own hazards. Electronic disruption, when properly controlled, offers the possibility of neutralising the threat without sending an interceptor crashing back to earth. These advantages should not obscure the limitations. Soft-kill systems depend on the vulnerabilities of the target’s electronic architecture and may be less effective against increasingly autonomous drones that require fewer external communications. Weather, range, power availability, frequency management and the sophistication of an adversary's electronic countermeasures can all affect performance. No single technology is likely to provide a complete answer. The future of counter-drone warfare will therefore belong not to the beam alone but to layered defence combining. The emergence of systems such as T-SHUL BEAM suggests that India is beginning to build the technological pieces of that architecture at home. (The writer is a retired naval aviation officer and a defence and geopolitical analyst. Views personal.)

Dog lovers differ on SC order

Minal Sancheti
May 20
3 min read

Mumbai: The Supreme Court’s Tuesday order on the euthanasia for the dogs that are rabid or are aggressive and dangerous has evoked a mixed reactions from animal lovers in Mumbai.


Pooja Sathe Gawande, a dog trainer, sees the order as a positive rule not just for the humans but also for the animal, who would otherwise go through a lot of pain. “The order is in the public interest for their health and safety. So the dogs that have rabies or are incurably ill, which means they cannot be cured at any private hospital or government hospital, should be euthanized,” she told ‘The Perfect Voice’.


“They have also mentioned that each state and union territory needs to have at least one working animal birth control centre. First of all, they need to set that up and get the animal birth control going on,” she said.


Shirin Dhabhar, a canine behaviourist and trainer, agrees to euthanasia in the case of terminally ill or injured dogs who are in a lot of pain. She said, “For rabies, there is no cure, and it’s a very painful disease, so it is much kinder to let the animal go. Dogs who meet terrible accidents that break their spines, and if the dog cannot be repaired or has a poor quality of life, then we should put them down peacefully. But it has to be done humanely with the veterinarian.”


Sarika Nerurkar, a photographer who has taken pictures of animal rescuers and activists across the country, differs. She said, “To be very honest, this entire situation just leaves me with a lot of questions. Who decides which dogs are to be euthanised? How does someone decide if a dog is actually rabid? What are the checks and controls in place to make sure this power isn’t misused? Because these are still living beings we’re talking about. And then I keep wondering, where does their right to life go in all of this? What about the lives of animals that literally cannot speak, advocate, or fight for themselves?”


Nerurkar said, “I understand that public safety is important, of course it is, but it feels deeply unfair and heartbreaking when the solution starts becoming the elimination of the weakest and most defenseless beings in society. Especially in a country where so many strays survive only because ordinary people choose to feed them, care for them, vaccinate them, and protect them. For me, this feels less like a solution and more like fear being imposed on beings that have no voice in the matter. And that’s what makes this so sad.”


Silent Death

The Supreme Court order also talks about killing dogs that cause harm to humans due to severe aggression and behaviour issues. The animal lovers differ on this point too. Gawande said, “Enforcing and blankly saying that removing all the dogs from the premises of railway stations, hospitals, and other places is not practically possible. The government cannot take all the dogs and dump them somewhere. They are living things and not dead objects.”


Dhabhar believes there is a lot of grey area in the matter. “When it comes to aggressive dogs, there is a lot of ambiguity because behaviour is not necessarily black and white. The key question is who is determining that the dog is dangerous here. The dog can bite for reasons like fear, the animal can be in pain, or maybe it's the mother dog protecting the baby. This could be one of the reasons, but it doesn’t mean that the dog will bite repeatedly. So who decides whether they are aggressive or not?”


Another animal lover Sandhya Wagle said, “As far as aggression is concerned, it can be cured by medicines. Also, they are not aggressive on their own; they are made aggressive. Animals can be made aggressive by human influence. So if you make an animal chase or bite, or try to catch, they can do it. If there are breeds that are aggressive, they can  be calmed down by medicines.”


An animal lover Erum Ali Qureshi said, “The idea for removing stray dogs from their places is wrong as they can relocate healthy, sterilised dogs from their territory, which they have been protecting for years. When you do that, you create a vacuum and invite unvaccinated dogs into the ecosystem. If you say you will kill every dog that will come in place, after a few generations, the dog will become aggressive and so feral that you will not be able to catch them, as they will become defensive. Then they will bite people.”

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