18-May-2022: HANSA-NG Aircraft successfully completed Engine Relight test in Air
HANSA-NG 2 seater flying trainer Aircraft, Design & Developed by CSIR-NAL, has successfully completed in-flight engine relight test at DRDO’s Aeronautical Test Range (ATR) facility, Challakere on 17th May, 2022. Flight test was carried out at an altitude of 7000-8000 feet with the speed range of 60 to 70 knots by Wg Cdr K V Prakash and Wg Cdr NDS Reddy, Test Pilots from Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE), Indian Air force (IAF).
In-flight engine relight capability of the aircraft was demonstrated with wind milling propeller and starter assisted start. The aircraft handling characteristics & flight parameters were found to be normal during these test flights.
CSIR-NAL mentioned that, the in-flight engine relight test is most critical and important milestone towards certification of the aircraft by DGCA. The aircraft was ferried to ATR, Challakere on 16th May 2022, after obtaining necessary approvals from DGCA. The flight tests were monitored by Mr. Abbani Rinku, Project Director of HANSA along with design team of CSIR-NAL and flight test crew from ASTE - Wg Cdr Senthil Kumar, Flight Test Director, Sq Ldr Sahil Sarin, Safety pilot and Gp Capt. M Rangachari, Chief Test Pilot.
Mr. Jitendra J Jadhav, Director, CSIR-NAL congratulated the teams of CSIR-NAL, DGCA, ASTE-IAF & ADE-DRDO and mentioned that, the combined and coordinated efforts of the integrated team resulted in text book execution of the test flights.
6-Mar-2022: HANSA-NG successfully completes sea level trials at Puducherry
India’s first indigenous Flying Trainer HANSA-NG designed and developed by CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore under the aegis of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, has successfully completed the sea level trials at Puducherry from 19th February to 5th March, 2022.
The aircraft was flown to Puducherry covering 140 nautical miles in one and half hours at a cruising speed of 155 km/hr. on 19th February 22. The objectives of sea level trials were to evaluate handling qualities, climb / cruise performance, balked landing, structural performance including positive & negative G, power plant and other systems performance. CSIR-NAL sources said that all the objectives of the sea level trials are met and aircraft has been ferried back to Bangalore on 5th March, 2022 after completing 18 hours flying at Puducherry. The aircraft was piloted by Wg. Cdr. K V Prakash and Wg. Cdr. Dilip Reddy of ASTE. The flight was monitored by CSIR-NAL designers and Wg. Cdr. Reeju Chakraborty as Flight Test Director from telemetry.
HANSA-NG is one of the most advanced flying trainer powered by Rotax Digital Control Engine with unique features like Just-In-Time Prepreg (JIPREG) Composite light weight Airframe, Glass Cockpit, Bubble Canopy with wide panoramic view, electrically operated flaps etc. CSIR-NAL further said that HANSA-NG is designed to meet the Indian flying club needs and it is an ideal aircraft for Commercial Pilot Licensing (CPL) due to its low cost and low fuel consumption. NAL has already received more than 80 nos. of LoIs (Letter of Intents) from various flying clubs.
Director, CSIR-NAL stated that total 37 flights and 50 hours of flying completed, and few more flights will be conducted before getting Type Certification by DGCA. Type Certification is likely to be completed by April, 2022 and thereafter the manufacturing will be initiated with Public / Private Industry which will enhance the aerospace eco system under Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Dr. Shekhar C Mande, DG, CSIR while congratulating the team has lauded the commendable efforts put by integrated team of CSIR-NAL, ASTE, DGCA and HAL to achieve this important milestone.
3-Sep-2021: Hansa New Generation (NG) aircraft, designed and developed by CSIR-NAL, successfully made its maiden flight
Hansa New Generation (NG) aircraft, designed and developed by CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bangalore a constituent lab of CSIR, has successfully made its maiden flight on 3 September 2021. The aircraft took off from HAL airport at 2 09 PM and flew at an altitude of 4000 ft. and gained a speed of 80 knots before it made a successful landing after about 20 minutes. Capt. Amit Dahiya, test pilot, who has flown the maiden flight has expressed his happiness and told that all the flight parameters were found normal and it is a Text Book flight.
The unique features of Hansa-NG are glass cockpit with cabin comfort, high efficient digitally controlled engine, electrically operated flaps, Long endurance, low acquisition and Low operating cost.CSIR-NAL has already received 72 Letters of Intent from various Flying Clubs and the aircraft will be certified within the next 4 months before it gets inducted into service. The flight was monitored in telemetry by senior officers and scientists / engineers from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Centre for Military Airworthiness & Certification (CEMILAC) and CSIR-NAL.
Dr Shekhar C Mande, Secretary, DSIR and Director General, CSIR, while congratulating Team NAL said that this successful milestone flight is the culmination of efforts of the CSIR-NAL design team, flight test crew and DGCA with support from ASTE. He further mentioned that CSIR-NAL has already identified a private partner and series production will start soon. He applauded the efforts of Mr. Abbani Rinku, Project Director, HANSA and Team NAL for the tireless efforts which has made this possible.
11-Apr-2022: Indigenous Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Solutions for Indian Traffic Scenario launched under InTranSE -II Program
An indigenous Onboard Driver Assistance and Warning System – ODAWS, Bus Signal Priority System and Common SMart iot Connectiv (CoSMiC) software have been launched under Intelligent Transportation System Endeavor for Indian Cities Phase-II initiative of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The product was launched last week by Dr. Rajendra Kumar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in gracious presence of Shri. Arvind Kumar, GC (R&D in Electronics), MeitY, Dr Satis V Ukkusuri, Purdue University, USA and Prof. H P Kincha, Chairman, InTranSE program, Smt. Sunita Verma, Scientist-G & HoD ESDA, MeitY and Shri Kamlesh Kumar, Scientist-D, MeitY. The product was developed as a joint initiative by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) and Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M). Mahindra and Mahindra was the industrial collaborator for the project.
- Onboard Driver Assistance and Warning System – ODAWS: With improved highway infrastructure and increase in number of vehicles, speed on roads has increased, further exacerbating safety concerns. As per Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of India (MoRTH), in around 84 percent of cases, "driver error" was cited as the cause of the accident. This assumes significance in the context of potential for technology applications for assisting and warning drivers in minimizing driving errors. ODAWS incorporates vehicle-borne sensors for monitoring driver propensity and vehicle surroundings to deliver acoustic and visual alerts for driver assistance. The project involves the development of sub-modules such as the navigational unit, driver assistance console, and mmWave radar sensor. The positional and dynamic characteristics of surrounding vehicles are probed using mmWave radar sensors. The navigational sensor provides a precise geo-spatial orientation of the vehicle as well as trends in driving behaviour. The ODAWS algorithm is used to interpret sensor data and offer real-time notifications to the driver, boosting road safety.
- Bus Signal Priority System: Poor reliability of public transport system is a major reason for people to opt for personal vehicles. Improving this is essential to attract more travellers to public transport, thus leading to a more sustainable traffic solution. One of the major causes of delays for public transport buses in urban arterials is the delay at signalized intersections. Bus signal priority System is an operational strategy that modifies normal traffic signal operations to better accommodate in-service public buses at signal-controlled intersections. Unlike a blind priority that is given for emergency vehicles, here it is a conditional priority, which is given only when there is an overall reduction in delay for all vehicles. The developed system will enable to minimize person delay by providing priority to public transport buses, either through Green extension or Red truncation, considering all vehicles approaching a signalized intersection.
- Common SMart iot Connectiv (CoSMiC): It is a middleware software providing standard based deployment of IoT adhering to oneM2M based global standard. It facilitates users and application service providers in various vertical domains to use application agnostic open standards and open interfaces for end to end communication with well-defined common service functionalities complying with oneM2M standard. With this in view, CoSMiC common service layer is used to interface any vendor specific standards and for increasing interoperability with smart city dashboard. The horizontal silo architecture ensures interoperability and data exchange between different IOT devices and applications and avoids vendor lock-in. CoSMiC comply with 12 common service functions which are Registration, Discovery, Security, Group Management, Data Management & Repository, Subscription & Notification, Device Management, Application & Service Management, Communication Management, and Delivery Handling, Network Service Exposure, Location, Service Charging and Accounting.
The CoSMiC platform also provides Interworking Proxy Entity (IPE) APIs for connecting non-oneM2M (NoDN) devices or third-party applications to get connected to the CoSMiC platform. CoSMiC provides a Dashboard page showing IoT units, products, applications, and its live data in a Geographical Information System (GIS) map. A secondary data repository is also available for historic charts and reports. CoSMiC provides an end-to-end solution for the seamless connection of IoT devices and applications.
31-Mar-2022: Electric Vehicles and Charging Stations
The number of electric vehicles in the country, as per Vahan 4 data, as on 25-03-2022, is 10,76,420 and a total of 1,742 Public Charging Stations (PCS), as per the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), are operational in the country, as on 21-03-2022.
Ministry of Power has issued “Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles – the revised consolidated Guidelines and Standards” on 14.01.2022 to accelerate the E-Mobility transition in the country.
Under the Scheme for Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India Phase-II (FAME India Phase II) of the Ministry of Heavy Industries, 2877 public EV charging stations have been sanctioned in 68 cities.
Action Plans have been prepared by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) for 8 cities with 4 million plus population (Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Surat, and Pune). Under these Action Plans, scenario wise targets have been prepared for Business as Usual (BAU), Moderate and Aggressive Scenarios for installation of chargers in these cities.
Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) had invited proposals from any Govt. Organization/Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) (State/Central)/Govt. DISCOM/ Oil Public Sector Undertaking and similar other Public/Private entities to build and operate Public EV charging infrastructure on Expressways and National Highways under FAME India Scheme Phase-II for Highways & Expressways, wherein PSU Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), in consortium with Convergence Energy Services Ltd. (subsidiary of EESL), has been awarded the work for setting up of EV charging stations along 16 NH/Expressways.
In order to facilitate EESL in the above prospect, NHAI has signed an MOU with EESL. As per this MoU, NHAI shall provide space/land near toll plazas and its buildings for installation of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations, based on revenue sharing model, subject to an agreeable amount to NHAI and EESL. As part of the Wayside Amenities (WSAs), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has also awarded 39 such facilities for development.
10-Feb-2022: Government of India sets policy for Electric Vehicle charging stations
Ministry of Power issued the revised consolidated Guidelines & Standards for charging infrastructure on 14th January, 2022. The salient features as stipulated in the guidelines and standards are as under:
- Tariff for supply of electricity for Public Charging Station (PCS) shall be a single part tariff and shall not exceed “Average Cost of Supply” till 31st March, 2025.
- DISCOMs may leverage on funding from the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) under ‘Part A – Distribution Infrastructure’ for the general upstream network augmentation necessitated due to the upcoming charging infrastructure in various areas. The cost of such works carried out by the DISCOMs with the financial assistance from Government of India under Revamped Scheme shall not be charged from the consumers for Public Charging Stations for EVs.
- Housing Societies, Malls, Office Complexes, Restaurants, Hotels, etc. are allowed to install PCS for charging of vehicles including charging of visitor’s vehicles permitted to come in its premises.
- Charging stations meant for 100% in-house/captive utilization are free to choose charging specifications as per requirement.
- DISCOMs have been directed to provide electricity connection to PCS in accordance with the timelines specified in the “Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules 2020”.
- The connection for a PCS shall be provided within 7 days in metro cities, 15 days in other municipal areas and 30 days in rural areas. Appropriate Commission may specify a lesser time limit than the aforementioned limit.
- Any PCS/chain of charging station may also obtain electricity from any generation company through open access. Open access shall be provided within 15 days for this purpose. Only cross subsidy charges (not more than 20% as per Tariff Policy Guidelines), transmission charges and wheeling charges shall be applicable.
- Guidelines also include the details of requirements of Public Charging Infrastructure (PCI), PCI for long range EVs and/or heavy duty EVs, Location of PCS, Database of Public EV charging stations, Tariff for supply of electricity to EV PCS and service charge at PCS.
- Due to high cost of rent for land and charges provision of land at promotional rates for PCS have been provided in the Guidelines. Land available with Government/Public entities shall be provided to Government/Public entity on a revenue sharing basis at a fixed rate of Re.1/kWh (used for charging) to be paid to the land owning agency, initially for a period of 10 years.
The Charging Stations take connection from DISCOMs which in turn take the supply of electricity from the Grid. The power is supplied to grid from both Non-Renewable and Renewable Sources.
2-Dec-2021: Electric Vehicle Charging Station on National Highways
Electric vehicle Charging Stations are to be provided by the developer as part of the Wayside Amenities (WSAs) being awarded by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). NHAI has already awarded 39 such facilities and the proposals for 103 such sites are at bidding stage. Further, additional WSA sites, as and when identified by the Authority, would also be put up for bidding. The works which have been already awarded are expected to be completed by the end of FY 2022-23.
Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) had invited proposals from Government Organizations/Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) (State/Central)/ Government DISCOMs/ Oil Public Sector Undertakings and similar other Public/Private entities to build and operate Public Electric Vehicle charging infrastructure on Expressways and National Highways under FAME India Scheme Phase-II, wherein Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) consortium with Convergence Energy Services Ltd (subsidiary of EESL) has been awarded the work for setting up of EV charging stations along 16 NH/Expressways.
In order to facilitate EESL in the above prospect, NHAI has signed an MOU with EESL. As per this MoU, NHAI shall provide space/land near the toll plazas and its buildings for installation of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations based on revenue sharing model. The space/land for the same shall be provided to EESL at no cost basis for duration as decided by NHAI. This would not only assist in promoting clean/green energy and conserving the environment but could also be a source of revenue for NHAI.
Further, the Ministry of Power, vide memorandum dated 14th December, 2018, has published guidelines and standards for the charging infrastructure of electric vehicles, which are available on [www.powermin.nic.in]. These guidelines have been revised on 01.10.2019. These guidelines stipulate the requirements regarding density/distance between two charging points and specify the priorities for rolling out of electric vehicle public charging infrastructure.