The India Air Force's (IAF) multirole air superiority fighter aircraft SU-30MKI to ready for major upgrades as the technological innovations become an integral part of the Armed Forces across the globe. State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) that is developing a new cockpit for SU-30MKI will also be including the Artificial Intelligence (AI) that would enable an aircraft to execute a command based on spoken words.
As per a report in Deccan Herald, HAL unit in Nashik has already begun to work on the "proof of concept" prototype. The project kicked off in November 2019 to show how the existing analogue cockpit of the Russian-made fighter aircraft could be upgraded. One of the scientists working on this project said, "The heart of the cockpit upgrade, however, is a new Artificial Intelligence system which can carry out commands said by the crew."
Indigenously developed cockpit for future wars
The new cockpit will be loaded with a number of analogue gauges and that will switch the cockpit's front panel, in favour of customizable digital screens. A key located on the left side of the cockpit activates the Voice Activated Controller System (VACS), a 2.7-kg unit which uses AI to understand verbal commands. The scientist further added, "For example, if the crew pressed the button and said 'altitude and position', the AI system would verbally inform the crew about their current altitude and position. The system has a set of pre-built commands, including weapons selection. The AI system has been indigenously developed and can understand various accents spoken in India with an accuracy of 98 per cent in speech recognition.
It is estimated that AI has the potential to add $ 957 billion or almost 15 per cent of India's current GDP by 2035. However, the Indian defence forces, unfortunately, have been slow to adopt new technologies for a multitude of reasons. With its local defence manufacturing still to attain its potential, mostly the new technologies are either being ignored or imported paying thousands of crores of rupees. Artificial intelligence has been greatly ignored by the previous governments but the incumbent government has kicked off the process to include the technology in the Armed forces.
