New Delhi, April 7 Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief Samir V Kamat said on Tuesday that the biggest challenge in material development is that it takes 10-15 years, while the system development cycle is "continuously shrinking".
And, unless the material development cycle "keeps pace" with the system development cycle, getting any new material in will become "a greater and greater challenge," he said in his address at a defence seminar hosted at Subroto Park here.
"Materials are key enablers, whether for systems, weapons, or sensors. If you want capabilities beyond what you currently possess, you must develop materials that can provide that capability," the DRDO chairman said.
He cautioned India against depending on foreign countries for material development technology.
"You are not going to get it. They will give you the technology only after they have used it in their systems. And, when they move to the next generation technologies, they give you the various components of technology needed for making your systems," Kamat said.
"So if you have any ambition of becoming atmanirbhar and a technology leader, this is one area – not the only area, but one area – that the country needs to focus on," he asserted. In his address, the DRDO chief underlined various challenges the material development sector faces, from investment to scalability.
"But the biggest challenge we have today is that the material development cycle is 10 to 15 years. If you see, the system development cycle is continuously shrinking. Today, new systems arrive every five years and in areas like drones, things change every couple of years or every year," he said. So, unless the material development cycle keeps pace with the system development cycle, "getting any new material in is becoming a greater and greater challenge," the DRDO chief added.
Kamat, also Secretary, Department of Defence Research and Development, said the materials community has attempted to shorten the materials development cycle, using integrated computational materials engineering and AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) tools to shorten it. "I am very hopeful that in the next five to ten years, the materials community will also be able to shrink the material cycle," he said. The next challenge, after producing materials, is converting them into the product form you need. That is where manufacturing comes in, Kamat underlined.
In his address, the DRDO chief also urged stakeholders to work in the area of critical raw materials used in making materials.
"See, today we have magnet technology, but we don't have the rare earth metals," he emphasised. China controls 90 per cent of the rare earth metals. And for the heavy rare earths needed in neodymium, iron, boron magnets, China has 99 per cent dominance, the DRDO chief added.
"So we have to look at tungsten. Today, we don't have any tungsten in the country to make tungsten heavy alloy. We have the technology to make tungsten heavy alloy, but our dependence on tungsten is still very high. It's not that these resources are unavailable in the country. We have tungsten and rare earth resources in the country. But we have not paid enough attention to the extraction technologies. We have not paid enough attention to exploring our country to see where these resources are," he said.
Kamat underlined that there is a need to look at this holistically if one has to make a mark going ahead. "I am sure that with the increased focus of the government on atmanirbharta, all these issues will be addressed...And I'm sure the deliberations that you will have (at this seminar) will lead to some roadmap which you can propose for the government to take it forward," he said.
The seminar is hosted by a think-tank Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies (CAPSS) and the Indian Military Review publication.
