Rajnath Singh lauds “new energy” of defence start-ups; Zeus Numerix shows how it's done - Broadsword by Ajai Shukla

A Guidance Kit, designed by Zeus Numerix, that effectively converts a Dumb Iron Bomb into a Precision Guidance Munition

By Vikas Gupta

Yelahanka, Bangalore

On Wednesday, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh equated defense start-ups with “new energy, new commitment and new enthusiasm” during the “Start-Up Manthan” at Aero India 2023.

Welcoming the Innovations for Defense Excellence (iDEX) initiative, launched within the framework of the Defense Innovation Organization (DIO) by the Ministry of Defense (MoD),
he said it has allowed talent to emerge from across the country.

Listeners included Basant Gupta and Abhishek Jain who together launched Zeus Numerix, a small modeling and simulation design house. Zeus Numerix quickly illustrated the potential of young Indian scientists and technologists by carrying out a 2010 “stage separation analysis” of the BrahMos cruise missile for the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).

Over the next few years, Zeus Numerix worked with 17 different DRDO labs, completing 160 assignments that allowed the defense design agency to focus on systems integration.

Gupta says the door to high-tech innovation was really opened to small defense companies when, after 2014, the new government implemented the “Make in India” policy, which prioritized procurement from manufacturers. Indian companies with the help of monetary grants from the Ministry of Defence.

In 2018, the Ministry of Defense awarded Zeus Numerix a grant of Rs 5 crore, under the Technology Development Fund (TDF) to develop a “composite material sea water pump” for naval vessels. Zeus Numerix has built a pump that is lighter than the current one and resistant to corrosion.

These pumps are now installed in two of the Navy’s frontline destroyers: Indian Naval Ship (INS) Kolkata and INS Delhi.

The start of the Ukraine-Russia conflict in 2014 put a strain on the Tejas fighter program, as the Ukrainian defense industry, which supplied a key hydraulic pump for the Indian fighter, was no longer able to build them or to provide them. Zeus Numerix and Godrej Aerospace came to the rescue, teaming up to design and manufacture this critical subsystem. The cost: Rs 5 crore.

Later, under the Make 2 procedure – under which private companies fund the development of indigenous products themselves – Zeus Numerix took on the challenge of developing a substitute for the guidance kit provided by the United States for Excalibur artillery shells. The new kit takes on the guidance role, ensuring a much higher degree of accuracy in hitting the target.

Illustrating the many options available to technology innovators today, Zeus Numerix secured a loan from the Maharashtra Defense and Aerospace Venture Fund (MDAVF), which is managed by IDBI Capital and managed by IDBI Capital.

Zeus Numerix is ​​currently working on three projects: an artillery shell guidance kit; another for 81 millimeter mortars and hardening of guidance electronics.

The company has managed to evolve an artillery shell guidance solution, reducing its dispersion from 300 meters (the distance from the aiming point that a shell actually hits) to just 35 meters.

The dispersion of the 81 millimeter mortar shell has been reduced from 100 meters to only 5-10 meters.

The last challenge is difficult. When a shell is fired, the forces experienced by its guidance electronics vary from 10,000 to 20,000 times the pressure of the atmosphere – enough to crush any electronics. But Zeus Numerix has built electronics capable of withstanding a force of 17,000 times gravity.

“We did all the miniaturization and ruggedness in-house,” says Jain. “We will achieve the targets that the MoD has stipulated.”

As more “tech challenges” are offered to young defense innovators, the solutions save money and help indigenize. On Wednesday, Rajnath Singh launched the ninth edition of Defense India Start-up Challenges (DISC-9) on “cybersecurity” with 28 problem statements, and the iDEX Investor Hub (iIH).

“Over Rs 200 crore has already been pledged under iIH by major Indian investors,” the MoD said.