India’s first indigenous composites sonar dome, a ship’s underwater eyes and ears, was today flagged off by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar from here to be delivered to Mazgaon docks in Mumbai.

• Designed and produced by a Defence and Research Development Organisation (DRDO) lab in Pune, the sonar dome is a first of its kind in the country and has been manufactured by a composites manufacturing company.
• This is a huge contribution by Indian Industry to the ‘Make in India’ movement as said by Defence Ministry.
• Only a couple of companies worldwide have the capability of realising such structures.
• All anti-submarine warfare (ASW) ships have a sonar array fitted to the ship structure below the waterline.
• The sonar functions as the ship’s underwater eyes and ears.
• The sonar dome is a structure fitted over the sonar array so that its electronics and sensors are not exposed to surrounding hostile environment and has to be structurally sound as well as acoustically transparent.
• It has been designed by Research and Development Establishment (Engineers), a DRDO laboratory based in Pune and manufactured by Goa-based composites manufacturing company Kineco.