Innovations for Defence Excellence

Why is in news? Indian Army has signed the second procurement contract through Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX)

• Continuing with the commitment towards 'Make in India' initiative the Indian Army has signed the second procurement contract through Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) on 09 June 2023.
• Tactical LAN solution is being developed indigenously for creating secure tactical LAN in remote and difficult terrain.
• ‘Tactical LAN Radio' is a state of the art high bandwidth backhaul wireless radio equipment for provisioning of reliable and failsafe communication.
• The solution offers an enhanced range of communication and embedded frequency hopping mechanism to preclude chances of interception and long-range point-to-multipoint high-bandwidth communication.
• The system also incorporates the enhanced safety features and can operate continuously for 48 hours on a single set basis without any breakdown.

iDEX:

• iDEX - Innovation for Defence Excellence
• iDEX was launched on 12 April 2018 during Defence Expo India 2018.
• One of the first aims of India as a nation since Independence has been to achieve self - reliance in the field of defence and defence production.
• India is the world’s largest defence equipment importer and is expected to spend around USD 220 Billion in the coming decade to modernize its armed forces.
• In the recent years, the government of India has initiated various schemes like Make In India, Startup India, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), etc. to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in the Indian commercial ecosystem.
• This has also made increasingly evident that achieving the goal of self - sufficiency for the Indian military will require a means to incorporate innovation rapidly in the weapons procurement process.
• iDEX aims at creation of an ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in Defence and Aerospace by engaging Industries including MSMEs, start-ups, individual innovators, R&D institutes & academia.
• And provide them grants/funding and other support to carry out R&D which has good potential for future adoption for Indian defence and aerospace needs.

Objective:

• Facilitate rapid development of new, indigenized, and innovative technologies for the Indian defence and aerospace sector, to meet needs for these sectors in shorter timelines
• Create a culture of engagement with innovative startups, to encourage co-creation for defence and aerospace sectors
• Empower a culture of technology co-creation and co-innovation within the defence and aerospace sectors.

Defence Innovation Organization:

• iDEX will be funded and managed by a ‘Defence Innovation Organization (DIO)’ which has been formed as a ‘not for profit’ company as per Section 8 of the Companies Act 2013 for this purpose, by the two founder members i.e. Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) - HAL & BEL.
• iDEX will function as the executive arm of DIO, carrying out all the required activities while DIO will provide high level policy guidance to iDEX.
• The modalities of implementation of DIF will be managed by a specialized team known as the Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) within the DIO. DIO will provide high level policy guidance to iDEX. iDEX will have functional autonomy.
• The CEO of iDEX will be selected and recruited by the DIO and will be a professional person of sound technical, scientific and engineering background with divergent knowledge and experience in innovation and research.
• The iDEX team will need to undertake the following activities:
• Setting up and managing of the iDEX network in form of Independent Defence Innovation Hubs.
• Communicate with innovators/startups through the Defence Innovation Hubs regarding defence and aerospace needs.
• Organizing various challenges/hackathons to shortlist potential technologies for defence and aerospace use.
• Facilitate scale-up, indigenization and integration in manufacturing facilities for successfully piloted technologies.
• Evaluate technologies and products coming from innovators/startups in terms of their utility and impact on the Indian defence and aerospace setup
• Interface with the military (Army/Navy/Airforce) top brass about key innovative technologies and encourage their adoption into the defence establishment with suitable assistance (financial if required).