Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) 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. The missile is an enhanced version of the ULPGM-V2 missile developed and delivered by DRDO earlier.

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.

The missile is jointly developed by DRDO laboratories, namely, Research Centre Imarat, Defence Research and Development Laboratory, Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory, High-Energy Materials Research Laboratory, Integrated Test Range and Defence Electronics Research Laboratory. The present trials were carried out for the Anti-armour configuration.

The missile was released from a UAV, which is indigenously developed by an Indian start-up, Newspace Research Technologies, Bengaluru. DRDO is actively pursuing integration of ULPGM weapons with long-range and high endurance UAVs from several other Indian companies. Development cum production partners, Adani Defence and Bharat Dynamics Limited, Hyderabad, and 30 MSMEs/start-ups contributed to making this unique project a grand success.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh congratulated DRDO and the industry partners for the development and successful trials of the ULPGM-V3 system. He termed the success as proof that the Indian industry is now ready to absorb and produce critical defence technologies. Congratulating the teams, secretary, department of defence R&D and chairman DRDO, Dr Samir V Kamat said that the development of such a weapon is the need of the hour.