Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Launched Precision Guided Missile-V3:
Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully carried out flight-trials of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Launched Precision Guided Missile (ULPGM)-V3 at the National Open Area Range (NOAR) test range in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh.
- It is a precision-guided air-to-surface missile launched from drones and designed to strike targets with high accuracy while reducing risk to personnel.
- The missile is jointly developed by DRDO in collaboration with Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), Adani, and multiple MSMEs and start-ups under the Make in India initiative
- Features of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Launched Precision Guided Missile-V3
- It can achieve a maximum range of 4 km during the day and 2.5 km at night.
- The ULPGM-V3 is equipped with a high definition dual-channel seeker that can strike a wide variety of targets.
- It can be fired in plain and high-altitude areas. It has day-and-night capability and two-way data link to support post-launch target/aim-point update.
- The missile is equipped with three modular warhead options: Anti-armour to destroy modern age armoured vehicles equipped with Rolled Homogeneous Armour (RHA) with Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA); Penetration-cum-Blast warhead with Anti Bunker application and Pre-fragmentation warhead with a high lethality zone.
- There are three known ULPGM variants: ULPGM V1 (baseline), ULPGM V2 (production variant, also known as ULPGM), and ULPGM V3 (extended-range variant, also referred to as ULM-ER).
- The ULPGM-V3 can be carried and operated by individual soldiers in remote and mountainous regions.
- The drone-launched missile also comes with a tandem warhead to defeat tanks equipped with explosive reactive armor (ERA).
