Aeronautical Society holds Luminary Lecture series

Hyderabad: The Aeronautical Society of India comprising eminent scientists and engineers is a highly acknowledged professional body dedicated to the growth of Aerospace in India. The society was founded to promote the advancement and dissemination of knowledge of diversified Sensors, Aeronautical and Aerospace Sciences/Technologies.

The Society encourages fraternisation amongst professionals, promotes R&D in aeronautical activities, evolves policies and increases awareness of indigenous/international information/events through lectures, workshops and seminars on subject of topical interest.

AeSI has introduced 'Aerospace Luminary Lecture Series.' So far more than 60 luminary lectures by eminent scientists and engineers like Dr R Chidambaram, Dr P Rama Rao, Dr Anil Kakodkar, Dr RA Mashelkar, Dr VK Saraswat, AS Kiran Kumar, Dr PS Goel, Dr Kota Harinarayana have been delivered.

AeSI organised a technical meet and Aerospace Luminary Lecture on at DRDL on Sunday with participation of nearly 500 eminent scientists, academicians, engineers, industrialists and professionals from the aerospace sector. Dr VK Saraswat, Member NITI Aayog, Dr G Satheesh Reddy, Chairman of DRDO, Directors General of DRDO, U Rajababu, Programme Director, were also present. Prof V Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi, and Prof V Kamakoti, IIT Madras, delivered the Invited lectures.

Dr G Satheesh Reddy, Chairman of DRDO, and Aeronautical Society of India congratulated all the DRDO Labs and team members associated with Mission Shakti and said, "The ASAT test has demonstrated the Indian technological capabilities to carry out such a critical mission with very high degree of precision."

He also said that critical systems including softwares and sensors were indigenously developed and a team of scientists from various specializations have worked in complete synergy day and night for six months culminating in the successful launch. The most important challenge during the mission to ensure that all the systems cohesively respond to ever changing dynamics."

Rajababu, Programme Director, during his address highlighted the mission objectives and criticalities of Mission Shakti and said "the high altitude and high velocity interception pose many technological challenges in respect of seekers for early detection and trajectory correction systems for finer corrections before engagement. When the relative velocity of the systems involved is around 10 km/sec there was a pertinent need for high levels of precision. The booster needs to provide the requisite velocities, the technologies such as dome opening, heat shield etc need to be precise and smooth apart from the highly accurate and secured data communication systems. Using accurate sensors and onboard seeker, the ASAT missile was guided towards the target to ensure direct hit without employing any warhead."

Dr Y Sreenivas Rao, Project Director and Secretary, AeSI, congratulated the industry partners for their involvement and efforts in realisation of the weapon system within a short timeframe and said "Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Missile Complex led the mission with support from ITR, Chandipur and other multiple DRDO labs."

Prof V Ramgopal Rao, Director IIT-Delhi, delivered a talk on "Connecting Academic R&D with Product Innovation : A Roadmap for the future." Prof V Kamakoti, IIT-Madras, in his lecture spoke about 'Data Libre,' an initiative taken by IIT-Madras in data analytics for the financial world which can be customised for real time data processing for financial sector. He also spoke about Secured Tablet which in collaboration with DRDO-IIT Madras has resulted in successfully porting secured software environment which directly suits our strategic needs of our country. The Secured Tablet has been manufactured by BEL. He spoke of an open source initiative taken by CSE Department of IIT-Madras called 'Shakti.' The Shakti team is actively working with various partners to develop a VLSI base for large part of the eco-system.

The Aeronautical Society of India felicitated both the academicians for their distinguished contributions.