Bangalore-based Alpha Design Technologies Limited (ADTL) has signed an order to supply 400 indigenously made Software-Defined Radios (SDRs) to be fitted on the tanks operated by the Indian Army in forward areas.

“Indian Army has taken a giant step in ordering 400 armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) SDRs for their tank fleet. We have already signed the contract and manufacturing is in process. We have also offered our manpack SDRs for meeting requirements of Indian soldiers and they’ve already been evaluated by the Army recently,” Col HS Shankar (Retd), CMD, ADTL, told TOI.

The SDRs, as per the contract under Army’s emergency procurement, are for all tank platforms. Earlier, the firm, which is backed by Adani Group, had manufactured and supplied 5,000 Combat Net Radios (CNRs) — an older version of communication equipment — for tanks.

“Defence forces world over are changing over their tactical communication systems and equipment from conventional analog or semi-digital fixed frequency (data for different versions in separate bands of frequencies) to single all-in-one radios based on software algorithms for working over complete bands of frequencies, including satellite communication bands. The current trend is to go for SDR which works on embedded software-oriented high-end algorithms-based waveforms equipped with additional features such as large hopping rate, encryption in anti-jamming voice, data, video, IP and mobile ad-hoc network, etc,” Shankar said.

Pointing out that Indian industries such as Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), ADTL and DRDO have been working on such technologies for many years, Shankar said while the Navy has procured SDRs from DRDO/BEL, ADTL has been working to meet the needs of the Army and Indian Air Force (IAF) for more than a decade.

With an eye on the future, ADTL recently achieved interoperability of its SDR with that of another firm being used by IAF. Although it has no orders yet from the IAF, the technology, ADTL says, demonstrates an edge when it comes to working with radios having legacy technologies in use and can be a game changer for the global market also.

With development of interoperability features, ADTL is also working together with Elbit-Israel to tap the export potential for such systems.

“As a technology-driven R&D and production firm, we’ve put in considerable effort through our more than 30 young software and firmware teams of experts. We recently achieved a breakthrough and offered our equipment to the Army and IAF to meet tactical communication systems needs.” Shankar explained.