Discussion on Defence with Mr. R Muralidharan

R. Muralidharan, currently working for Tata Advanced Systems Ltd., Mumbai, as the Chief Technical Officer, is a well-known expert in defence solutions with a significant number of contributions to the development of Indian Defence technology - particularly in mission-critical systems such as missile/rocket Launchers, Gun systems, Combat Management systems and Communication & Radar systems. Some of his notable works include the contributions to the Indian Navy's Indigenous carrier’s Combat Management System system and the DRDO Advanced Towed Artillery Gun system. R. Muralidharan holds patents and has received awards for his contributions to the field. He was elected a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering. In 1989, he was invited to the Distinguished Young Scientists meet with then Prime Minister Late Mr. Rajiv Gandhi.

In this interview, he talks to Udaan about the evolution of India’s defence technology, the projects he has led, the new trends in the industry, and the skills that the students are expected to possess in today’s world. He is undoubtedly a revolutionary figure and a guiding light for many; read on and get inspired!

When asked to throw some light onto “The evolution of India’s defence technology landscape over the years,” R. Muralidharan said:

“India is still the largest importer of weapon systems, right? We are the largest importer in the world as of today - I'm talking about running 2023 statistics.”

He mentioned that because of British rule, we were not left with a good enough industry base to develop everything from scratch - which was the impetus to start importing from various countries such as the US, France, Russia, Israel, et cetera. But now, things were beginning to change:

“Slowly and gradually, we are moving to our design, development and manufacturing instead of importing. In the next 5 to 10 years, we should become self-sufficient. We should be exporting, too. And for a large economy like us, it is the difference in exports that is going to really change the economy.”

He also mentioned that developments in defence technologies have dual uses; they can be used in civilian applications. For example, the communication systems used in the civil services were drawn from the military. Moreover, now that private companies are participating, he expressed his surety about India’s position as a global leader in defence manufacturing and exporting.

“So, with these private companies participating, the government facilitated the synergies. And I'm sure in a few years, we'll be a very advanced defence manufacturing and exporting country.”

Finally, he added that the technologies that will be developed will raise the quality of life of the common man, changes made to economic advancements and the number of jobs that would be created.

Moving on, when requested to elaborate on some of the ground-breaking projects he has led as a critical figure in Tata Advanced Systems Limited, R. Muralidharan chose to start with the ATAGS - Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System. He said:

“We have a strong collaborative academia, and we work closely with DRDO, and we work with the defence services to understand their requirements and how to do things.”

Talking about the ATAGS project, he said,

“Gun systems are normally very classic and old technology systems. Simple ones have a lot of safety issues because they can create safety hazards for the operating crew. In the case of ATAGS, we have tried to make it a really advanced technology-incorporated system. We call it a software-defined gun.”

He explained that there are a lot of sensors in play here, so if something were to go wrong, they would be able to sense it ahead of time and stop the functioning of the gun. This minimises the hazards and risks that such a gun can pose to the crew members. He continued:

“Second, it's very accurate. Very consistently accurate. There's no collateral damage. Earlier, when you would fire something, you had to keep firing around it assuming that some would hit the target. Here, you can exactly hit the target. You will only hit the target and not anything else.”

Furthermore, talking about the compact management system that TASL co-developed for the Indian Navy’s first aircraft carrier, he said:

“It's a command-and-control system for the aircraft carrier – a very advanced software-intensive system that is totally indigenously developed except for an aircraft control module specific to the imported aircraft. So, we are able to modify it based on Indian requirements. Earlier, we had to buy somebody else’s system and leverage it. Here, we are developing it ourselves, so we are able to adapt it and modify it according to the requirements of the services. And it may change over a period of time after they use it for two or three years.”

He said that since they possess all-round and in-depth knowledge about the systems they develop, they can adapt it to the requirements as time goes on. Moreover, being totally software-defined, they are able to modify the software appropriately to achieve different/new functionalities.

Further, we asked about how the new-born fields of Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning and Machine Learning are really applicable to defence and combat systems? Do they have a role to play?

He agreed with us that AI, ML, and generative AI are some fields that will influence every walk of life and not just defence. AI seems to be a ground-breaking invention, after all!

R. Muralidharan explained the whole process of using and training machine learning models in a very understandable way. He said:

“The training data for the model is very important. So, the right thing to do is, first, collect the training data. Then tag it with the context, et cetera. Then use them for training a model for embedding in the combat management system. Right? So, in the current CMS, we are putting data logging with context. We'll collect all data and log in what action was taken and what the situation was. So that data, collected over 2 years, can be used as a quality training set.”

As if everything is not crystal clear already, he continues:

“We will use it for upgrading the CMS with machine learning models, which will be trained with the collected data set. Secondly, where our data is not available, we also are able to simulate the training data by an appropriate simulation technique.

With all of our understanding, we'll generate it and then use that sample data to train a model. The Indian defence is very upbeat about adopting AI, they themselves are adopting AI wherever they can. There was a committee formed, to define what they should do. So, they have a road map and every defence PSU - (Public Sector Undertaking) in the industry is also following that. There's a lot of adoption of newer technology in India.”

And thus, he gave us a total inside-out of how the whole machine learning model training actually happens! Further, if that wasn’t enough, he was more than happy to introduce the emerging AI concept called ‘Edge AI”. Talking about Edge AI, he said:

“If you look at generative AI and large language models, they need huge computing power and electric power. Now weapons like a gun, we cannot run that. So, there's a concept called edge AI. So, what they're trying to bring in is the Edge AI inference system. It's a lean model trained specifically for a particular domain. It won't be able to do everything else in the world. Just that concept of Edge AI is what we are trying to bring into the weapons system. Maybe at the backend, we can use a generative AI (LLM), and probably use a server and the Internet.”

He added, if we are sailing and there is some problem, we might not have the internet connection required to solve the problem, and this is where Edge AI comes into the picture!

Edge AI really sounds like an innovative adaptation of the already existing Artificial Intelligence technology.

Moving on, defence is all about the safety of the country and its citizens and instilling in the minds of the citizens a certain sense of security; but what about the safety and security of the defence systems and the crew operating it? That’s exactly what we asked him:

“So, sir, as trustworthiness and security are something you cannot leave out when it comes to these kinds of defence systems, how does India ensure the reliability and resilience of these indigenous technologies in the defence industry, especially in the face of evolving threats?”

He was very impressed by the question and said:

“Security of systems is very important. In the military, there's this net-centric warfare. That means all weapon systems are connected/networked. So, one weapon system is not independently functioning. We have a network, a command-and-control centre, sensors and shooters, and there is a chain of events that is happening. Somebody's observing. Somebody's acting. The OODA loop. The sensor is there; the shooter is there; the shooter is the gun or a rocket system which has to work in synchronisation. So, there is a network of systems from sensor to shooter - from gun to tank, you name it. Right? So, your security becomes a big and critical issue. Security is a big issue when it's a networked system and vulnerable to hacking. So, there's a need to adopt the concept called SecOps for development of Systems.”

Now SecOps might sound like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, but it is just a variant of DevOps and stands for Secure Development of Systems with security right from scratch rather than wrapping it at the end. This ensures security at all levels during the design phase itself.

“Right from the beginning, can we develop a secure system? Once you develop each model, can you check its security by trying to hack into it, by discovering these vulnerabilities? And then, as you build up gradually, look at more and more of the security operands. So, we are very much aware of this.”

He further went on to cite a book by Paul Scharre called “Army of None”. Apparently, this book gives us a comprehensive approach to dealing with the security of defence systems “right from the module level”.

“However secure the system, the enemy can find a loophole. But a lot of design aspects and resources and computing power and software is put into making it secure. You know a gun system - when you are talking to the command system, someone can give a wrong command - "Fire here!" and “Fire there!” may mean that you are firing at your own friends! So, we have to be very careful. And, there are techniques, technology involved in how to do fencing of your system. For example, what we communicate with the external world is not hard to intercept. When I am communicating, nobody can find out that I am communicating. So, there are so many techniques and technologies involved in a network environment. So, your entity is not operating in isolation, it is operating in synchronisation with a lot of other entities. So, all those things have been taken care of. Being aware of one’s own technology matters.”

All of this might sound scary at first, but problems do have solutions. He explained how they test and develop the security of the systems to be able to deal with breaches, hacks and security infringement.

“Tomorrow, if I'm buying a foreign system, they could have a loophole. They call it a backdoor - where our data will be sent to them regarding what we are doing. We cannot find out. This is another important reason why we should have our own weapon system. So, security is not a simple word, it is how we contribute to the concept of trustworthiness. If I have a computer, if I have a system – is it trustworthy?

So, it's built on so many checks and balances, right? So, we are developing trustworthy solutions, which can be secure for everybody. And, the trustworthiness is at various levels and it's being improved. And then, we also employ ethical hackers - after we make a system, we give it to a set of hackers. They try to break into it. They're ethical hackers. They're well trained to hack. They're trying to see whether they can break in. Sometimes, they do break in, and then we fix that.”

Another question to him was about academics:

“So, could you please talk about the significance of the collaboration between academia, industry, and the government while developing and driving advancements in this sector?”

He explained that the academia and the industry of a country are the two pillars of development, adding that nothing can go right if they don't learn to work hand in hand. He further emphasised that the skillset of the academia, put together with the engineering and manufacturing technologies of the industry, is what can get the development and economy of a country really high. Having said that, R. Muralidharan had so much to say about the question asked:

“The industry can think of a product. But, basic out of the box thinking and research innovation comes from academia. I will give you an example: you have your GPS which is there on your phone also. GPS uses a very advanced concept called time dilation. When Albert Einstein talked about time dilation, nobody thought it had any practical use. So, this is a simple example to say that basic science starts from basic scientific research. We need to get into detailed engineering, manufacturing, quality manufacturing. It’s a big process. So, academia, out of the box thinkers, science and technology thinkers – all of them are required to come together to a problem solution.”

In today’s ever-evolving world, we are building a lot of new technology, artificial intelligence being one of the most impressive. However, according to him, when a country has developed technology, it should also possess a strong academia. This is simply because most of the research in the world comes from academia. Converting the fundamental research into a product is the industry’s job.

As we know, any academic, technological, or industrial feat in the world is built upon many hurdles and setbacks, which brings us to our next question:

“Sir, what are the major hurdles and challenges right now, especially for defence in the private sector?”

“Today, the private sector is strong in engineering and manufacturing. But what do we engineer and manufacture? Technology, for that, is being developed only by DRDO today. Otherwise, we're importing it. The private sector’s challenge is that we don't have ready-made technology available to engineer and manufacture and we have to resolve this.“

We know that just like economic growth, demographics, and technological advancements, the defence sector is also a big indicator of a country’s power. Hence, the question:

“Sir, so how do you see the future of India's defence technology? How long do you think it would take to come to where the other countries are right now?”

To this he confidently replied that in just 5 to 10 years, we can start exporting in a big way. We have already started exporting weapon systems.

“Luckily for us, main systems are getting somewhat defined, new technologies are being developed indigenously, we are getting at par with them. And, we are a very young demography with good learners.

So, we should be able to learn more than them and quicker. It doesn't have to wait for so many years. They took 10 years to do something. We can do it in 2 to 3 years. We have a base; we can improve on it quickly.”

To back his statement, he used the example of ATAGS. He said:

“Nobody thought that guns were important, but we thought guns are important because they're cheaper to operate than a missile or rocket. So, we invested. It’s giving results. We even exported some.”

Coming to our next question:

”Sir, where do you see IITs fitting into this entire picture of academia research and the government initiatives?"

IITs and IISERs being the premier institutes of technology in India, are expected to raise and train bright minds to contribute to technology which directly helps in the greater good of the nation. R Muralidharan agreed to this and said:

“For example, today, look at the gun system. We load the charge, ignite it resulting in an explosion in a chamber pushing the shell out and the shell flies away.

Tomorrow, there is some electromagnetic gun, it doesn't have any explosives - like the way your camera doesn't have any film and has no chemicals present. Same way, an electromagnetic gun doesn't have chemicals. Right? So, there are so many developments required in the defence industry.”

Having said this, the IISERs and the IITs, with the government supporting them, can contribute to the advancements using the knowledge that they gain. However, he also mentions a certain kind of challenge the private sector might face:

“The challenge in India I think is that private industry thinks that they should get something. They are used to getting ready-made technologies; they think IITs will give them ready-made technology but it's not like that.

It is the industry that has to change its mindset. IITians do not want to spend a lot of time on how to manufacture a quantum computer, they can only give the concept. They'll give you the concepts. You have to equally contribute to it, engineer it and then manufacture it. Converting a proof of concept to a product is a role of the industry.”

That brought Udaan to its last question:

“What advice would you give aspiring engineers, aspiring students, aspiring scientists who want to contribute something to the defence sector?”

“All students or anybody, including me, should first remain a student all their life. You're getting a degree; you're getting a license to learn.”

Great words, right? After all, if we let the desire to learn fade away, then we are never going to improve in life. Life is all about learning; learning happens at all phases in life, during, before, and after school, college, and even when we are pursuing our careers. Learning is key.

Moving on:

“Electrical, Electronics, and, Computers fraternity has a worldwide body called IEEE, where we have a concept called LLL - Life Long Learning. So, (for) every student, if you want to contribute in the long run, you have to learn. For example, let's take what I learned from 1977-79 in MTech in Computer Science and Computer Engineering. Okay? The basics are still there, but I have to study much more every day to retain my job. And, to lead my job, I need much more. So, lifelong learning is one thing. And, you will consider your degree as a license to learn more. Right? And, you know, there's a famous saying, "Even when you're a student, let your schooling not interfere with your education." What you learn in your classes is one thing, but what you want to get educated in is another thing.”

“Thank you. Especially IIT Tirupati. I always say, we also have Lord Balaji conspiring for your success. Thank you for this opportunity.”