India’s Adani Defence Bets big on Drones, Small arms at Aero India 2023

India’s Adani Defence & Aerospace and its partners, Alpha Design Technologies and PLR displayed a wide range of equipment including UAVs, C-UAS Systems, tank upgrades and small arms at Aero India 2023.

Drones exhibited at this stall include Hermes 900 produced by Adani Elbit UAV Complex in Hyderabad, the first private UAV manufacturing facility in India and the first facility outside Israel to manufacture the Hermes 900 UAV. Adani Elbit is offering the Hermes 900 UAV, originally manufactured by Israel’s Elbit Systems, for the Indian Tri-Services as a cost-effective MALE UAV for usage across all terrain.

Other drones presented at the event are HAROP loitering munition built with Israel, SPOT V3 VTOL UAV made by Bengaluru-based start-up CD Space, among others. Adani is involved with producing Hermes 450 tactical UAV, Skylark tactical mini UAV, Thor VTOL Low Altitude UAV, Sky Striker Tactical Loitering Munition, and Long Endurance Quadcopter AI-Based Swarm Technology.

PLR Systems Pvt Ltd (PLR), a Joint Venture between Adani Group and Israel Weapon Industries (IWI), put up a range of small arms it manufactures such as ABHAY assault rifle, Lakshya sniper rifle and Prahar light machine guns.

Adani’s stall also had Long Range Guided Bomb (Weight – 550 kg and 1000 kg class, Effective Range - 80 to 100 km), UAV Launched Precision Guided Missiles (UAV Launched – Air to Surface, Weight – 5 to 8.5 kg, Effective range - 1.5 to 4 km), Rudram-1 air-to-surface ground attack and anti-radiation missile, long-range smart glide bomb ‘Gaurav’, etc.