Strategic electronics is a key area where defence production and offset policies have created immense scope for growth of domestic manufacturing. Electronic Industries Association of India (ELCINA) had launched the Strategic Electronics Summit (SES) back in 2010 to look into these and see how the industry can benefit from it.
It offers a platform for the Indian industry to explore opportunities to work together with the defence establishment bring all stakeholders including the government, defence organisations, private and public sector together and share information.
Defence electronics seems to be an interesting area of development bringing in start ups and veterans alike. Representatives from government and non-government organisation networked and connected at the SES to work towards defence equipment.
The range of exhibitors included BEL, C-DOT, CDAC among others. This article takes a look at some of the notable technologies exhibited at the event.
Startups, LoRaWAN and Automation
The interest by startups in the defence sector was a welcome change. Here are some of the interesting firms from various segments of the technology stack.
We had the Ajna group, promoting Rudraksh, an IoT-based surveillance solution. The system works on LoRaWAN, for connectivity. Implementation of LoRaWAN has been gradual with people picking up interest at a rapid rate. The solution is however, yet to be seen in implementation.
A Programmable Platform for Experiments & Academic Research on SDR, or PEARS,  for software defined radio (SDR) development was another exhibit by CDAC. The platform enables experimentation with several wireless technologies. It consists of a dedicated hardware which can be modelled as per requirement via the Matlab software.
Pentair presented its Schroff brand which attracted quote a crowd. They showed printed circuit board (PCB) accessories, such as card retainers and extractors, front panels and handles. They also manufacture rugged sub-racks, cases, backplanes, power supplies, cabinets and pre-assembled chassis for embedded computing systems.
Syrma Technologies highlighted their product portfolio of magnetic product solutions for embedded hardware design development. Magnetic components find applications in lighting, communication, consumer electronics, home appliances, defence, automotive and computers. They also highlighted some of the applications of magnetic products in transformers, inductors and customised solutions.
We had input solutions from Keetronics catering to a multitude of applications ranging from medical to defence. Some of their prime areas of application include, defence, railways, medical, electronics, fuel dispensing pumps, industrial automation, hospitality and leisure. The range of keyboards include PCB and PCF based, duraswitch, short & long travel, capacitive and illuminated keyboards among others.
Amphenol presented a range of connectivity solutions for system developers. The product portfolio ranging over circular, audio, PCB, rack & panel, back shells, RF, antenna, cable jointing, cable harness, fiber optic and power connectors.
Techlabs, Cubix control systems and East India Group were among some companies providing industrial solutions. These range over end-to-end design services, testing and analysis to products, tools and packages. They offer custom-built electronics, mechanical, industrial automation and solutions. The range of products and design tools vary across electronics engineering products, power electronic solutions, mechanical engineering tools, PLM, FPGA & ASIC solutions, modeling, simulation and embedded graphics tools.
We talked to Coreel Technologies, offering solutions across intellectual property (IP) cores, design & development, bespoke system design & prototype development among other solutions.
Mathworks team showcased their strengths as defence system simulator experts at the event —Â with mathematical computing software for algorithm development, data analysis, visualization, and numeric computation focused on the critical defence electronics space.
SES status
With the aim of networking and connecting with different solution providers, SES proved fruitful. The role of Indian Companies & MNC’s is vital to achieve the objective of  value addition since the government has made its intention amply clear. Hence, focus will now be towards enhance domestic value addition in this sector by active participation and investments by foreign as well as domestic companies.
