Scientist who heads ATAGS project to head DRDO’s Armament cluster | India News – Times of India
PUNE: Shailendra V Gade, Outstanding Scientist (OS) and the Project Director of the Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS) appointed as the Director General (DG) of the crucial Armament and Combat Engineering systems, DG(ACE) with effect from September 1 here in Pune.
The DG (ACE) heads nine important laboratories of DRDO, including the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL), and Research and Development Establishment (Engineers) R & D E(E) in Pune.
Under his leadership, ATAGS has been designed, developed and realized successfully. The gun has cleared the high altitude and desert trials in Sikkim and Rajasthan respectively said the DRDO officials.
Apart from this, Gade has played a pivotal role in various projects taken up by the DRDO in the last three decades.
Speaking to TOI, Gade, said, “The laboratories under the ACE cluster have been working on major DRDO projects. We endeavor to complete them in the stipulated time frame. We have prepared a roadmap to achieve this objective in the coming years.”
“Gade has worked in the past on the design and development of India’s fully indigenous Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher System (Pinaka) and played a pivotal role towards fructifying this system and its induction into Army. Subsequently, he took over the Small Arms Group (SAG) at ARDE and led the team successfully towards realizing, Joint Venture Protective Carbine (JVPC), Under Barrel Grenade Launcher (UBGL), Multi-caliber Individual Weapon System (MCIWS), Air Bursting Grenade (ABG) apart from improvements in the INSAS small arms,” said a senior DRDO official on condition of anonymity.
He carried out extensive research and formulated a project proposal on ‘Future Infantry Soldier as a System (F-INSAS)’ towards enhancing the capabilities of the soldiers in the areas of lethality, surveillance, survivability, protection and communication.
Gade has led the team in developing the armament system for Infantry Combat
Vehicle (ICV) for DRDO’s project Abhay. Abhay was equipped with the main gun system and a very innovative two-column feed and ejection system to handle two different Ammunitions.
He has been instrumental in leading the team in developing tank ammunitions for Main Battle Tank Arjun and other main battle tanks. He was appointed as Director of Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (VRDE) Ahmednagar and has been associated with several critical projects such as WhAP, IPMV, CBRN- Tracked, CBRN- WhAP, 180 HP Engine, Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) and so on.
He is a recipient of the DRDO’s Performance Excellent award for Pinaka(2002), Scientist of the Year award (2013), team leader award for ATAGS in 2017, DRDO’s Agni award for excellence in self-reliance in 2017′ for ATAGS and Best innovation/Futuristic dev. award (2020). Under his leadership, VRDE has announced the Silicon trophy for 2020.
Gade is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay. He has guided B Tech and M Tech students in their projects. He has more than 40 papers to his credit in National and International journals. He has been delivering technical lectures at the Infantry, Artillery, and many International conferences.
He is also spearheading several strategic systems projects.
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