BEL’s Largest Defence Systems Integration Complex to Come Up in 900 Acres in Anantapuramu District, Andhra Pradesh

Navratna Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) is setting up a Defence Systems Integration Complex at Palasamudram, Gorantala Mandal, in Anantapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh. It will be the largest such facility in the country once it is commissioned, covering an area of over 900 acres. The Raksha Mantri, Manohar Parrikar, laid the foundation stone for this facility on Wednesday, September 30, 2015, in the august presence of N Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, M Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister for Urban Development n Parliamentary Affairs, P Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Commerce & Industry and Y S Chowdary, Minister of State for Science n Technology.

S K Sharma, Chairman Managing Director, BEL, said: “We at BEL have been continuously investing in modernization and creation of special infrastructure to cater for emerging defence business opportunities. The upcoming facility at Palasamudram is one such initiative. We are also strengthening our infrastructure in areas like Night Vision technologies and elements of Multifunction Radars. Various new Surface to Air Missile (SAM) programmes are proposed to be taken up by BEL, viz, Quick Reaction SAM , Long Range SAM, Medium Range SAM, etc, in addition to Network Centric Communication and Electronic Warfare systems.’’

BEL CMD added, “To achieve self-reliance in defence, there is need for a very strong indigenous RnD. In this direction, BEL has not only maintained a consistent policy of RnD investments but also has launched collaborative RnD with private SME firms in the country. On an average, 80% of BEL’s Sales turnover is from indigenous RnD every year. BEL has now launched a Product Development n Innovation Centre at Bangalore to give further thrust towards indigenous RnD.”

As part of diversification and business growth, BEL is looking towards major expansion into New Generation SAM systems, High end Image Intensifier Tubes and Thermal Imaging detectors for Night Vision Devices, Inertial Navigation Systems, Electronic Ammunition Fuses, Air Traffic Management Radars, Intelligent Traffic Management Systems and Solar Power Plants.

The Palasamudram facility will enable BEL to expand its Missile systems business and will carry out manufacturing & integration for the ongoing and upcoming projects. It will have state-of-the-art infrastructure such as Assembly Hangars and Hard Stands for Radars and Weapon integration, RF radiation sources for target simulation, Automatic Test Equipment, Clean Rooms for electronic assembly, Non-Explosive n Explosive Integration Buildings, Missile Storage buildings, Environmental Test Chambers, Fire Stations, Solar Power Plant, Estate and Admin buildings.

BEL is currently manufacturing the Akash Missile Systems (AMS) for the Indian Air Force and the Indian Army. The Akash Missile System is a supersonic, short-range surface-to-air missile system designed and developed by DRDO, with the capability to engage a wide variety of aerial threats like aircraft, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles. BEL is the lead integrator of the Akash Missile System for the Indian Air Force and supplies the Radars, Control Centres, Simulators, associated maintenance vehicles and the integrated software.

Testing and integration of missile systems involves actual deployment of Air Surveillance Radars, Fire Control Radars, Control Centers, Missile Launchers and other support systems to validate the detection, tracking, command and communication link parameters. Multiple groups of the equipment have to be positioned at suitable spacing over a large area to simulate field conditions. The upcoming facility will cater to these requirements. At present, BEL carries out its missile manufacturing and integration activities and system level checks at its Bangalore Unit. In order to cater to the large requirements of futuristic Surface to Air Missile systems, missiles and associated electronic sub-systems n components, BEL is setting up this facility in Andhra Pradesh.

The facility is about 80 Km from the Bengaluru International Airport on NH 7. The proposed Complex will be a world-class facility with Automated Guided Vehicles and Industrial Robots for material movement and handling. The facility will be built in stages as the various projects mature and the estimated investment will be about Rs.500 Crores over 3 to 4 years. BEL also plans to expand this facility for the creation of a Military Industrial Complex to set up the necessary ecosystem for manufacture of electronic components and equipment for various upcoming Defence projects in collaboration with SMEs as part of the Government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative.  

Si2 Microsystems Brings Three Significant Offerings for Indian Smart Cities

By Manu Sharma

As the Indian government rolls out its ambitious program of developing 100 Smart Cities on fast track, Si2 Microsystems, a leading firm into FPGA design and development capabilities is embarking on a three key offerings in the race for the smart cities.

For solutions related to smart city requirements, SI2 Microsystems has developed chip sets for smart cities with focus on three key offerings; Smart Street Lighting and Monitoring System; Smart Metering Network; and Smart Traffic Control System.

Talking to the media, Dinanath Soni, Executive Director of Si2 Microsystems (India) said, “The Smart Cities initiative of the government is a bold, new initiative. The objective is to promote cities that focuses on sustainable and inclusive development and the idea is to look at compact areas, create a replicable model which will act like a light house to other aspiring cities. We have already developed these chips for the Indian market and are partnering with three major firms in this respect.”

As part of the ‘Make In India’ campaign, we develop and roll out our chip sets from our own facilities in India, says Soni and adding besides Si2 has also designed and developed a number of RF products for use in smart cities solutions.

Among the three key offerings for the smart cities, we shall take a look at what Si2 is offering in the market and its benefits for the industry leaders.

Smart Streetlight Control and Monitoring System:

SI2 Microsystems street lighting solution has a number of benefits and these includes: Centrally GIS web-based inventory control with improved roadway safety. Its other features include energy savings up to 80% and maintenance cost reduction up to 50%. Besides the system reduces carbon emission and has proactive maintenance system.

Specific to Si2 technology, the street light brightness can be controlled to save energy and an immediate report can be sent to the control room if the street light is not working or partially working. That’s not all. The street light monitoring and controlling is achieved by wireless communication using ZigBee based wireless modules. The street lights can be monitored and controlled from a centralized area and also controlled remotely via cell phone by a suitable street light application. Also efficient application software makes it easy to track, troubleshoot, maintain and control the street lights selectively.

So in layman terms, here is what a common person can look forward to in the upcoming Indian smart cities. By using smart chip and enabling mobile cloud-based technology, street lights are able to identify themselves and also network via smart plug and play approach. Hence the next-generation LED street lighting gives quality lighting, saves energy, reduces maintenance and provides safe streets for residents. The web-based technology also enables manage street lighting. In addition, management system using chips can enable remotely control lighting fixtures and monitor energy usage and help identify themselves and network, thus reducing costs and avoid on-site maintenance.

Smart / RF Metering Network: Here is some pointers on what Si2 Microsystems offers -

•      Smart/RF metering communication network (wireless) for transmission of meter data from customer houses to meter management system

•      Transmits and collects data reliably from each meter in an automatic manner

•      Ensures the meter data security

•      Easy to maintain and manage effectively and properly

•      Reliable and robust network for continuous long time usage

•      Easy to construct and maintain at low cost

So  in order to reduce energy consumption, pilfer of power, identify faulty power points and save money on bills, consumers need to monitor their energy use carefully through Smart Meters and then make an effort to change the daily energy usage behaviour (such as less TV watching, switching off PCs when not in use) especially in peak time.

Smart Traffic Control System: Here is a list of some key features Si2 technology offers:

·        *  More efficiency use of roads

·        * Shorter journey time

·        * Significantly fewer accidents

·        *  Lower carbon emissions

·        *  Less congestion of traffic

·       *  Efficient application software makes it easy to track, troubleshoot, maintain and control the street lights selectively.

•  Presence Based Adaptive Lighting

–     Lights dim to pre-defined levels during off-peak hours.

–     Surrounding lights increase to full brightness as soon as human presence (pedestrian, bicycle or car) is detected.

• Energy Savings Data

–     Custom reports can be generated to help track energy consumption and savings across the system.

•  Weather Control 

–     Lighting levels adjust to weather conditions such as heavy rain and snow.

•  Fail Proof

–     Lights go to full brightness in the event of system failure.

•  Reduced Light Pollution   

–     Adaptive controls reduce light pollution and create a healthier living environment for both humans and wildlife.

In conclusion, Smart Traffic Control initiative with a GIS enabled digital road map of the city, coupled with the power of analytics, is the key to smooth traffic management. After collecting information from the Traffic Management System, the data analytics tool aligns the data in real time with GIS mapping and parking management, to provide information to motorists on the best route to take, thereby helping reduce traffic pile up.  This is already being used in many smart cities across the globe.

 “The Smart Cities has been allocated Rs 48,000 crore and 30% of the cost of manufacturing is going to be on software and the future would be around Internet of Things and Everything (IOT&E),” remarks Soni. 

Now Microsoft’s Commercial Cloud Services from Three Datacenters across India

Demonstrating its commitment to delivering trusted cloud services that enable people and organizations around the world to achieve more, Microsoft today announced the availability of Microsoft Azure services via local datacenter regions in India. As the first public cloud provider from India, Microsoft has opened three new regions – Central India in Pune, South India in Chennai, and West India in Mumbai. Governments, large businesses, small and medium businesses (SMBs) and citizens can use the massive computing power now available locally to fuel India’s inclusive growth, spur innovation and accelerate digital transformation.

In the words of Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India, “The Microsoft cloud in India will transform the way computing is done in the country.  The hyper-scale cloud will empower governments, businesses and users and offer enough computing power that will support all their existing workloads. We are happy to partner with Government and businesses to make the Microsoft cloud work for India and for Indians.”

Built on foundational principles of security, privacy & control, compliance and transparency, Microsoft cloud services are designed to enable individuals and organizations to achieve more. In addition to the Microsoft Azure services launching today, Office 365 services are slated for availability in October 2015, with Dynamics CRM Online services to follow in the first half of 2016. 

Millions of users in India are already using Microsoft cloud services leading to the cloud business growing by more than 100 percent year on year over the past two years.  With the local cloud services, regulated industries such as BFSI, government departments and state-owned enterprises will now be able to leverage public cloud services and be able to take advantage of local data residency. In addition, businesses that deal with large amounts of data e.g. media companies, will benefit from data replication in multiple regions within India for backup and recovery, reduced network distance, lower latency, and the option of a private connection to the cloud.

Microsoft local cloud services are well-suited for governments and businesses that already have significant investments in owned IT infrastructure.  They will now be able to extend their existing IT infrastructure and private clouds to Microsoft local (public) cloud, thereby creating compelling hybrid cloud scenarios and reducing their cost of IT operations significantly.  The impact on citizens is expected to be all the more significant as it will accelerate e-governanceand roll-out of citizen services at unprecedented scale and speed by governments, thereby accelerating the governments’ Digital India and Smart Cities programs.

Newer and transformational scenarios of computing will also be possible.  With the assurance of local data residency, programs like digital lockers and digital identity will also move quickly and enable better citizen services.

In addition,

* Startups and SMBs will gain a competitive advantage with enterprise-grade technology to help them innovate and grow their business to a global scale.

* Education Sector will witness transformational digital learning.  Just one offering, Microsoft Edu-Cloud, is expected to benefit 10 lakh teachers and 60 lakh students across 1500 institutes over the next 18 months from local Microsoft Cloud.

* Developers, IT Professionals, ISVs and Partner ecosystem will see newer opportunities and innovative business models.  From providing cloud assessment to cloud roadmap creation; from writing new cloud ready applications to migrating existing workloads to cloud; locally delivered cloud services will help hosters, ISVs and partners scale their business using the cloud.

Building the Intelligent Cloud

As one of the largest cloud operators in the world, Microsoft has invested more than $15 billion in building a resilient cloud infrastructure and cloud services that deliver higher availability and security, while lowering overall costs. Microsoft cloud infrastructure currently includes more than 100 datacenters located in over 40 countries, and the company is continuing to rapidly build capacity to serve customers worldwide. 

The Microsoft Cloud, including Azure and Office 365, supports compliance with a broad set of industry-specific laws and meets broad international standards.  Azure and Office 365 have received ISO 27001 certification, are audited under the SSAE 16 SOC 1 and SOC 2 standard, offer a HIPAA business associate agreement, and have received authorization to operate under FedRAMP. Microsoft was also the first to adopt the uniform international code of practice for cloud privacy, ISO/IEC 27018, which governs the processing of personal information by cloud service providers.

Microsoft is continuing to bring advanced cloud services such as Machine Leaning (ML), Advanced Analytics, Media Services, Internet of Things (IoT), Express Route and more, to organizations at the click of a button.  This will help businesses to extend existing investments to digital business scenarios, create new efficiencies and new revenue sources and enable innovation.  All this will now be possible by better harnessing of data, connecting people, streamlining processes and utilizing assets for digital transformation.  Thyssen Krupp is already using this for predictive maintenance of its elevators.  Several automobile companies are leveraging this technology for developing smart cars.  Government of Andhra Pradesh has adopted this predictive analytics technology to identify probable drop-outs from school and with the success it has had, the scope of the project has now been extended to more than 10,000 schools across 13 districts.

Further, Microsoft’s commitment to openness and collaboration have enabled new scenarios for customers and partners to take open source software and integrate it with a Microsoft platform. The open and flexible nature of Microsoft cloud allows customers to host a range of operating systems, use any data base or development platform and deliver services to end users using any PC or any mobile device. Today, more than 20 percent of virtual machines on Azure are Linux and VM Depot has more than 1,000 Linux images. Azure also provides first-class support for Java, Node.js, Python, Ruby, and PHP, and Microsoft Azure is certified to host SAP environments. 

Reinventing Productivity: Microsoft Office 365 is the most mature and popular productivity suite.  With new capabilities and features added with Office 2016 apps, messaging and collaboration services are all the more powerful and easier to use.  Better teamwork with Skype for Business, Social capabilities with Yammer, Business Analytics with Power BI and storytelling with Sway are just a few distinctive features.  Users across the country will now be able to get all this and more with better performance, reduced latency and local data residency in the country.

Microsoft’s Local Cloud Momentum

In the preparation to launch of cloud services from local datacenters, Microsoft created a special private preview program to allow early customers a preview into using the new local cloud services.  This has seen significant interest from BFSI, government departments and organizations, ISVs, ecommerce organizations and startups with participation from over 125 customers. Organizations such as Mahindra, Aditya Birla group, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Bank, BPCL, AIIMS, Fortis Healthcare, Narayana Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals, Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation, MIDC, TN ePDS, UP Power Corporation, Wipro, Infosys, Rediff, BookMyShow, Sony Corporation, NanoBi Data and Analytics, etc. have been using Microsoft local cloud services under this private preview program.

Parrikar to lay the Foundation Stone for BEL’s Defence Systems Integration Complex in Andhra Pradesh

Navratna Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) is setting up a Defence Systems Integration Complex at Palasamudram, Gorantala Mandal, in Anantapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh. It will be the largest such facility in the country once it is commissioned, covering an area of over 900 acres. Raksha Mantri, Manohar Parrikar, will lay the foundation stone for this facility on Wednesday, September 30, 2015, in the august presence of N Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, M  Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister for Urban Development & Parliamentary Affairs, P Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Commerce & Industry and Y S Chowdary, Minister of State for Science & Technology.

S K Sharma, Chairman & Managing Director, BEL, says: “We at BEL have been continuously investing in modernization and creation of special infrastructure to cater for emerging defence business opportunities. The upcoming facility at Palasamudram is one such initiative. We are also strengthening our infrastructure in areas like Night Vision technologies and elements of Multifunction Radars. Various new Surface to Air Missile (SAM) programmes are proposed to be taken up by BEL, viz, Quick Reaction SAM , Long Range SAM, Medium Range SAM, etc, in addition to Network Centric Communication and Electronic Warfare systems.’’

BEL CMD adds, “To achieve self-reliance in defence, there is need for a very strong indigenous R&D. In this direction, BEL has not only maintained a consistent policy of R&D investments but also has launched collaborative R&D with private SME firms in the country. On an average, 80% of BEL’s Sales turnover is from indigenous R&D every year. BEL has now launched a Product Development & Innovation Centre at Bangalore to give further thrust towards indigenous R&D.”

As part of diversification and business growth, BEL is looking towards major expansion into New Generation SAM systems, High end Image Intensifier Tubes and Thermal Imaging detectors for Night Vision Devices, Inertial Navigation Systems, Electronic Ammunition Fuses, Air Traffic Management Radars, Intelligent Traffic Management Systems and Solar Power Plants.

The Palasamudram facility will enable BEL to expand its Missile systems business and will carry out manufacturing & integration for the ongoing and upcoming projects. It will have state-of-the-art infrastructure such as Assembly Hangars and Hard Stands for Radars and Weapon integration, RF radiation sources for target simulation, Automatic Test Equipment, Clean Rooms for electronic assembly, Non-Explosive & Explosive Integration Buildings, Missile Storage buildings, Environmental Test Chambers, Fire Stations, Solar Power Plant, Estate and Admin buildings.

BEL is currently manufacturing the Akash Missile Systems (AMS) for the Indian Air Force and the Indian Army. The Akash Missile System is a supersonic, short-range surface-to-air missile system designed and developed by DRDO, with the capability to engage a wide variety of aerial threats like aircraft, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles. BEL is the lead integrator of the Akash Missile System for the Indian Air Force and supplies the Radars, Control Centres, Simulators, associated maintenance vehicles and the integrated software.

Testing and integration of missile systems involves actual deployment of Air Surveillance Radars, Fire Control Radars, Control Centers, Missile Launchers and other support systems to validate the detection, tracking, command and communication link parameters. Multiple groups of the equipment have to be positioned at suitable spacing over a large area to simulate field conditions. The upcoming facility will cater to these requirements. At present, BEL carries out its missile manufacturing and integration activities and system level checks at its Bangalore Unit. In order to cater to the large requirements of futuristic Surface to Air Missile systems, missiles and associated electronic sub-systems & components, BEL is setting up this facility in Andhra Pradesh.

The facility is about 80 Km from the Bengaluru International Airport on NH 7. The proposed Complex will be a world-class facility with Automated Guided Vehicles and Industrial Robots for material movement and handling. The facility will be built in stages as the various projects mature and the estimated investment will be about Rs.500 Crores over 3 to 4 years.                                                                                                                                                      

BEL also plans to expand this facility for the creation of a Military Industrial Complex to set up the necessary ecosystem for manufacture of electronic components and equipment for various upcoming Defence projects in collaboration with SMEs as part of the Government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative.