India And US Sign Co-Development Agreement For UAV

India And US sign co-development agreement for unmanned aerial vehicles: Defense Ministry.

India and the United States (US) sign a Project Agreement (PA) for an air-launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (AL-UAV) in late July, within the ambit of the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI).

The Ministry of Defense gave this information on Friday. The PA was signed between the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the US Department of Defense (DOD) on 30 July by the co-chairs of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on Air Systems under the DTTI.

“Collaboration between Air Force Research Laboratory, Indian Air Force and Defense Research and Development Organization towards design, development, demonstration, testing, and evaluation of systems for co-developing the PA ALUAV prototype,” a ministry statement said. Will prepare the roadmap.’

The statement explained that the PA for the ALUAV comes under the Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation MoU between the Defense Ministry and the US DoD, which was first signed in January 2006 and renewed in January 2015.

This was an important step towards deepening defense technology cooperation between the two countries through the co-development of defense equipment.

At the same time, the main objective of DTTI is to focus on continued leadership to promote collaborative technology exchange and create opportunities for co-production and co-development of future technologies for Indian and US military forces.

DTTI was created in 2012 as an ambitious initiative for the co-production and co-development of military systems but has not taken off despite several attempts.

In October 2019, in efforts to revive DTTI, both sides had agreed to a joint statement of intent to deepen defense technology cooperation, which also outlined specific short, medium, and long-term projects under DTTI, while JWG cooperation on the jet engine was suspended.