Defence public sector major BEL, in less than three years, has built a huge repository of intellectual property (IP) in imaging and radio communication sphere and is planning to commercialise them.

“The company was not filing any IP applications till 2010-11. It was only after the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) was released, that the company took it seriously and is now concentrating on IP creation,” MV Gowtama, Chairman and Managing Director, told BusinessLine .

“Over the last three years, the company has filed over 50 IP applications. Of these, few are getting into commercialisation. IPs are in the areas of vector image processing, C4S, multi-sensor data fusion etc,” he added.

The first IP product to be out in the market is a communication radio for the Indian armed forces – STARS-V Mk III. Second is a V/UHF secure voice communication network – Belcomnet, for the defence, paramilitary forces and for exports and the third is Remote Controlled Weapon Station (RCWS)/Air Defence Weapon Station (ADWS) for the 12.7-mm gun of MBT Arjun Mk II battle tank.

Talking about STARS-V Mk III, Gowtama said: “The Radio (STARS-V Mk III) is completely designed, developed and made in BEL. The radio is a multi-brand, high data rate, software-intensive IP radio with mobile adhoc networking (MANET) functions supporting up to 64 notes.”

“This STARS-V Mk III will be ready by end of March, and 12 units will be supplied to the Indian Army for field trials. Once trials are over and based on the success, we are looking at the Army’s requirement of around 40,000 units that need to replace its old legacy radio,” he added.

For developing STARS-V Mk III, BEL has spent $7 million in R&D that includes technology, module and the product. The technology developed will be used for manpak, vehicle-based and handheld devices.

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