Defence Avionics Research Establishment

Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE) is a laboratory of the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, it is the main DRDO lab involved in the Research & Development of Airborne Electronic Warfare and Mission Avionics systems.

History
DARE was established in 1986 as a Project Laboratory, then named "Advanced Systems Integration and Evaluation Organisation" (ASIEO). On 1 June 2001, it became a full fledged DRDO lab, and was renamed as DARE.

On 1 July 2008, Dr. U.K. Revankar took over as Director. DARE was headed by Dr. K.G. Narayanan from 1986-2002. On 18 January 2002, R.P. Ramalingam was appointed as Director and retired in June 2008. He retired on 31 July 2011.

Shri PM Soundar Rajan assumed charge as the Director of Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE), Bangalore on 1 August 2011.

Areas of Work
DARE has two major wings– the Electronic Warfare (EW) wing and the Mission Avionics Wing (MAW). The EW wing concentrates on development of Radar Warning Systems and EW suites for aircraft. The MAW conducts Research and Development in the area of Mission Avionics. In addition to development, DARE also conducts testing and integration of the systems into aircraft.

Achievements
DRDO's avionics program has been a success story; DARE being the lead designer in several of these efforts. Its Mission computers, radar warning receivers, high accuracy direction finding pods, airborne jammers, flight instrumentation, are used across a wide variety of Indian Air Force aircraft. The organization began developing these various items for its upgrades, and for the LCA project. Variants were then developed for other aircraft.

The DRDO is also co-developing more advanced avionics for the Light Combat Aircraft and the IAF's combat fleet. These include a range of powerful Open Architecture computers, better Defensive avionics including modern RWR's, self-protection jammers, missile approach warning systems and integrated defensive suites, optronics systems (such as Infrared search and track systems) and navigational systems such as Ring Laser Gyro based inertial navigation systems.

Some products developed by DARE include:


 * AEW Systems: Built for Indian Air Force and Navy aircraft, these consist of Electronic Support Measures and Self-Protection Jammers.


 * Radar Warning Systems: Developed for fighter aircraft in 1997. The units are being produced by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) for use in all IAF and Indian Navy aircraft & Helicopters.


 * Mission Avionics: DARE has developed the Mission computers and avionics for various aircraft, including the HAL Tejas, Jaguar DARIN-II and the Su-30MKI. The mission avionics includes a Mission Computer, Display Processor and Radar Computer. All have been indigenously developed, and represent major breakthroughs in achieving technical proficiency in these technologies.