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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.)

Enter the ‘executioner’

Quaid Najmi
Mar 31
3 min read

Mumbai: Creating history, senior IAS officer Ashwini Satish Bhide has been appointed the first woman Municipal Commissioner of the 160-year-old Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), bringing with her a formidable reputation as an ‘executioner’ of the most difficult assignments.

 

With this, the country’s biggest and richest civic body will have two women at the helm – including Mayor Ritu Tawde – and Bhide, an engineer who topped the 1995 UPSC examination among women.

 

Regarded as a tough, no-nonsense officer with vast administrative expertise, strict work ethics and an iron control over any project she handles, Bhide, 55, is expected to give a fresh impetus to the metropolis’ ongoing infrastructure development and upgrades.

 

Ranked among a few ‘high-impact bureaucrats’ in the state, Bhide started her administrative service in Kolhapur and then served in different capacities in Nagpur and Sindhudurg, later at the Lok Bhavan (then Raj Bhavan), a stint with Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, and lastly as Additional Chief Secretary in the CMO.

 

Metro Woman

It was her ruthless tenure as the Managing Director of Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (MMRCL) that shot her to national prominence and she is largely credited for steering the completion of the city’s longest and first fully underground Mumbai Metro-3, which faced multiple hurdles – earning her the moniker of ‘Metro Woman of India’.

 

These ranged from political, environmental protests, the legal hitches in the Aarey Metro Car Shed tug-of-war, land acquisition and resettlement issues plus local residents rattled over the incessant tunnelling underneath their century-old rickety structures or heritage buildings to the Mahim Creek.

 

Now, as the ‘Aqua Line’ started chugging six months (October 2025) between Cuffe Parade-Aarey Colony, most Mumbaikars are smiling sheepishly – vindicating Bhide’s herculean, albeit somewhat bulldozing, endeavours to ‘execute and deliver’.

 

Notching success for pushing through key infrastructure projects and urban governance initiatives, she earned a fair share of bouquets and brickbats, but didn’t falter in her strides.

 

Steely Resolve

Old-timers recall her maiden days in the lower echelons of bureaucratic assignments when her steely resolve with a keen eye for compliance, hands-on monitoring, aggressively pursuing deadlines, cutting through red-tape, etc. made many a mandarin shudder, yet earned her many admirers.

 

The Aarey Colony Metro Car Shed proposal had sparked one of the fiercest environmental wrangling with many pros-and-cons thrown up, widespread protests involving greens, civil society groups, activists, students and nature lovers arguing that it would wipe out a vital green lung of suburban Mumbai.

 

Unfazed by attacks labelling her as ‘insensitive’ ‘anti-environment’ and ‘heedless to public sentiments’, Bhide strongly fought back pointing out the Aqua Line’s long-term benefits as a crucial mass transit project, and the legal clearances it had obtained.

 

Returning to helm the BMC’s hallowed and hazy portals, Bhide will again be in the spotlight as the city grapples with a multitude of urban challenges of strained infrastructure, waste-management, monsoon floods, pending projects like the Mumbai Coastal Road northward extension right upto Virar, with greens already sharpening knives as thousands of mangroves could meet a watery grave… and more.

 

As a high-ranking ex-civic officer said, Bhide comes with clarity, speed at decision-making, making the files race, ensuring the project/s progress stick to deadlines and at a pace leaving little scope for long debates or delays.

 

Aarey Colony ‘balding’ still haunts

Greens groan as they recall then MMRCL Managing Director Ashwini Bhide’s lightning action (October 4-5, 2019) to order butchering over 2100 trees in barely 40 hours - or roughly at 1 tree/minute - splattering green blood inside Aarey Colony, Goregaon (East), to pave the way for the proposed Car Shed there.
 
Barely hours after Bombay High Court permitted felling of 2,185 trees, the action started late evening before the environmentalists and activists got time to move the Supreme Court the next day – by when the vicinity already sported a clean-shaven look with 2,141 trees ‘executed’ mercilessly.
 
Later, many environmentalist/activists were detained/arrested, there were court cases, etc, which continued as Bhide’s project zoomed ahead underground and the Aqua Line was unveiled in October 2025.

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