BSF to be armed with anti-drone system at IB soon

BSF troops guarding 200-km-long International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir will soon be armed with anti-drone system, officials said on Tuesday, a day after a Pakistani drone was downed in Arnia sector.

"We are working on it," a senior officer told PTI.

On Monday night, alert BSF troops shot down a Pakistani cameraless drone along IB in Arnia sector of Jammu district, officials h said just after interception. Ar set of officials said on Tuesday that anti-drone systems will soon be put in place along IB in Jammu-Samba-Kathua belt to foil any attempt by Pakistan to effect a drone intrusion in future.

" process of induction is on," one of officials said, ding that initially five to six systems will be deployed in area of operation on Jammu frontier.

force is also training troops to handle se systems, official said. In October last year, BSF h issued an Expression of Interest (EoI) for acquiring 'Anti Drone System'. EoI was issued after several instances of UAVs dropping arms in Punjab from across border were reported.

As per specifications, force has sought a ground-based anti-drone system in stand-alone platform. instrument will run on rechargeable batteries, BSF has stated as system has to be deployed in tough-to-access border areas that includes dense forests, desert, rivers and ors.

system, BSF specification said, should be capable to detect a lone suspicious flying object or group of UAVs (swarm attack) from a distance and should be capable to detect a target m within 10 seconds.  It (system) should be capable to do a real-time scan, detection, track and neutralisation of flying objects like multi-copters, fixed wing UAVs and rio-controlled UAVs in 360-degree environment, October draft specifications said.

force also desires that prospective techlogy should have "capability" to track multiple UAVs in a specified range and it should be able to neutralise flying objects by jamming its rio and GPS (global positioning system) links simultaneously and also trigger signals to force land drone.