Optimal_Control
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- Jan 2, 2024
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Hello @OscarI had my own small part in a project where I had suggested a very logical change and was given the India doesn’t have it(Im very sure the fellow in charge who told me this had no effing clue what the advantages or benefits of having that feature were or what it even looks like but he refused to discuss because “I know what it is”…)
Its always nice to have a perspective of how things happen the other side of the fence. Its also strange how innovation is stifled there.
Actually there two sides of the development process:So, mix of many unqualified decision makers in R&D( military) versus SMEs in India - compounded by “If it works it works” attitude keeps MANY capabilities in Pakistan stuck.
But you know babus in and out of uniform - India’s advantage is that ISRO and others have SMEs and most importantly the military cannot overrule them. Here a man with a background in running a ATGM company or Anti-Tank brigade retires and is made head of a department for Cruise missiles research because “Sir I have experience with missiles”… and the rest you can extrapolate.
(1) The R&D capability of your lab (quality of manpower) to design and develop the actual system, this includes Matlab/Simulink models, various tests.
If you ever visit any top IITs or IISc you'd most likely find a lot of DRDO guys pursuing their Ph.D. and the quality of their work could be established by the fact that they publish their work at some of the prestigious places such as American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) JGCD journal, IEEE transaction of automatic control (ITAC) and so on. For instance, IISc Bangalore is known to produce tons of high-quality literature in guidance and control that regularly gets published at AIAA JGCD. There are many stalwarts in that field in India. I am sure @JamD would know this.
In Pak's case, there are hardly 4-5 universities offering aerospace courses and on the ground they hardly have a presence at AIAA (I am talking strictly about Pakistani universities and not Pakistani students studying abroad). This is an impediment if you want to organically grow your aerospace research.
Unfortunately, there is also a cultural issue in Pakistan, i.e., very few are motivated to pursue "real" research within Pak. One thing that is India's favour is that a lot of Indians have started returning back from US after their Ph.D. (in aerospace) to join industry or academia in India. This has happened because of incentives structure present in India.
(2) Realizing the actual prototype-- this is where the role of SMEs and a whole lot of local eco system is important.
In India's case, back in the 80s, the ecosystem of SMEs and local industry wasnt as developed as it is now and hence they had a limited role to play in the development of the weapon systems and as a consequence of this a lot of sub-systems required in the weapons prototype had to imported from Europe , Russia or USA. But this gradually changed over time as the competency of the local industry increased and now the contribution of the local industry is ever growing in fact, they now have started taking part in the R&D design phase itself.
For instance, I was told by my seniors that when they were developing the cold launch system for Agni-5, they had to design the system capable of launching a 50t missile
with all the gas generator and everything. During this process one of our SMEs from Hyderabad supported the ASL in the design phase that led them to jointly file 5-7 patents. This is the type of synergy that we are witnessing now.
So, a country can effectively develop complex systems if they have decent R&D (by decent I mean competent manpower and leadership) and sufficiently evolved local industry.