BANGALORE: Two of the country's top scientific and avionics
research centres have successfully tested a technology that can
reduce the cost of running and maintaining an aeroplane by
nearly a third. The technology, called structural health
monitoring (SHM), developed by National Aerospace Laboratories
(NAL) and the Council Of Scientific and Industrial Research (
CSIR) has the ability to predict cracks or damages on an
aeroplane even when it is airborne. "We successfully tested this
technology, which is probably the first flight trial of an SHM
system on an unmanned aerial vehicle," said NAL director Dr AR
Upadhya. The flight trials on Aeronautical Development
Establishment's (ADE) Unmanned Air Vehicle, Nishant, was
conducted jointly by CSIR-NAL, ADE, which is a DRDO laboratory,
and the Israeli ministry of defence at an airfield in Karnataka.
The trial followed a eight-year development period. At present,
airplanes are required to return to the hangar, after a certain
number of flights, for numerous evaluation