CSIO develops targeting, navigation system for Navy

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 17

A mission critical navigation and targeting system for the Navy’s warships and submarines has been developed by the Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO) here that would now be manufactured commercially.

Christened Marine Bearing Sight (MBS), it provides instantaneous azimuth of identified targets, whether on shore or in sea, other vessels and even astronomical bodies. Azimuth is the horizontal direction expressed as the angular distance between the direction of a fixed point and the direction of the object.

The MBS is used in conjunction with the Marine Compass Repeater System onboard naval ships to provide an accurate means to indicate the true north and corresponding directions of ships, according to a statement issued by the CSIO here today.

It is provided with in-built illumination for night operations. The device provides unique features of multiple focal lengths and all lighting conditions. The technology is an offshoot of the ongoing activities in the related fields and outcome of the recent memorandum of understanding between Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Navy. 

The technology was unveiled by Dr Shekhar C Mande, Director General (CSIR), in New Delhi today. He lauded the efforts of Dr Vinod Karar and his team for commercialising the product in a very short span to meet strategic needs. 

CSIO Director Prof RK Sinha emphasised that it had become essential to have a sustainable industry-academia-laboratory-end user ecosystem for sharing resources, faster translation of technologies into products and critical evaluation of the developed product to develop next generation variants.