Aeronautical Development Establishment

Aeronautical Development Establishment is a laboratory of India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Located in Bangalore, its primary function is research and development in the field of military aviation.

Recent successful projects by ADE include Lakshya (an aerial target), Nishant (a reconnaissance UAV), flight simulators for (LCA, Ajit, Kiran, Mig-21) and avionics packages for Tejas-LCA (display and FCC). It earlier worked on Sparrow (mini-uav) and Ulka (aerial target).

History
Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) was established in January 1959 at High Grounds, Bangalore.

A large number of aeronautical projects were taken in the 1950s and 60s. The important projects being Hovercraft(VTOL) and Dart Target. Rapid expansion of R&D activities in ADE took place during the seventies and eighties and due to inadequate space at the High Grounds site to meet the growing needs of the establishment during May 1974, a new site was acquired in HAL II Stage where the Establishment is currently located.

ADE has developed core expertise and technologies pertaining to Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems, Combat Aircraft Systems especially the Flight Control Systems and Aircraft Simulators. The unmanned aerial vehicles consist of low speed long endurance type and the high speed aircraft which include target aircraft and cruise vehicles.

In the field of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles major projects were initiated namely the Missile Target ULKA, Mini Remotely Piloted Vehicle Kapothaka, Reusable target system Lakshya, Reconnaissance and Surveillance UAV Nishant, Laser guided kits for bombs, cruise vehicles, micro air vehicles, long endurance UAVs Rustom1 and Rustom-H and more recently studies related to unmanned combat aerial vehicles have been initiated.

ADE became a major partner in Light Combat Aircraft Tejas program and contributed extensively towards development of several critical systems(technologies) that include;
 * Quadruplex redundant digital fly-by-wire flight control system for flight control and stabilization of aircraft
 * Cockpit display system
 * Engineering simulator for evaluation of flying and handling qualities of aircraft
 * Mini Bird and Actuator test rig for testing flight control system hardware
 * Digital avionics integration rig for testing avionics systems and software

Over the last two decades, ADE has become a renowned systems establishment meeting needs of Indian armed forces in the field of military aviation with in-house development of state-of-the-art systems and technologies.

Former Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam began his career at this establishment.

Technology Divisions
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