Department of Aerospace Engineering

The Department of Aerospace Engineering (earlier known as The Department of Guided Missiles) was established in 1960 with a mission ‘to impart knowledge to scientists and service officers to take up the challenges in design, development and use of guided missiles’. The Department strives to achieve the following goals:-
• Teaching and research in the area of guided missiles and related fields.
• Undertaking projects and consultancy work in field of guided missiles.
• Dissemination of information on the latest trends on the missiles technology and allied fields.

Courses Conducted

The Department conducts regularly a number of short and long-term courses like SWC, GWSOC for, POINTS (Missiles Stream) for DRDO, Armed Forces and other organisations. It also conducts various tailor-made courses like Propulsion course for Defence Ministry- Singapore, Gas Dynamics Course for LASTEC and GM Courses for BDL and HAL.

Research Areas

Propulsion
• Scaled Rocket Static Testing of solid/liquid/hybrid Rockets




• Experimental & Theoretical studies of various types of propellants
• Performance studies of ducted rockets through connected Pipe Testing
• Hot Air Ramjet Studies
• Combustion of Fuels and Propellants

Missile System Design
• Trajectory Analysis
• System Optimisation

Control
• Flight Control, Missile Control & Autopilot Design
• Predictive Control & Estimation
• Control of Uncertain Systems, Variable Structure Control & Time Delay Control

Aerodynamics
• Computational Fluid Dynamics
• Parallel computing for CFD
• Experimental Aerodynamics
• Hypersonic Aerodynamics

Missile Guidance
• Inertial Navigation
• Laser Guidance & Terminal Guidance
• Image Processing
• Aircraft EW Systems against SAM

Instrumentation
• Development of piezoelectric and Thermal Sensors Structures and Composites
• FEM analysis of Aerospace structures
• Analysis of Composite Structures

Facilities

Propulsion Laboratory
• Solid, Liquid and Ram-rocket Test Facility
• Solid Propellant Processing Facility
• High Pressure Strand Burner
• Thermal Analysis Equipment
• Flame Propagation Unit
• Rocket Plume Impingement Facility

Aerodynamics Laboratory
• Mach 2.5 Supersonic Wind Tunnel
• 2’x4’ Low Subsonic Wind Tunnel
• Smoke Tunnel
• Laser Doppler Anemometer

Instrumentation
• Pressure and Temperature Measurement and Calibration Equipment
• High Speed Data Acquisition System
• Programmable Logic Controller

Control Lab
• Feedback Control Setups
• Controller Development Tools
• Analysis & Simulation Tools
• Servomechanism Set up

Computational Facilities
• Workstation cluster Multiprocessor with STAR-CD, Fluent CFD Software
• FEM Analysis Software
• Image Processing Software
• Matlab & Simulink
• SGI Workstation

Guidance and Image Processing
• IR & Laser Guided Bomb Rig
• Inertial Sensor and Platform
• Image Processing Facilities

Sponsored Research Projects
• CO2 Laser Combustion Drive
• Supersonic Diffuser for GDL
• Scene Area Navigation
• Fuel Rich Propellant and development for Air Breathing Missiles
• Thermal Conductivity Studies of Snow
• Development of Heat Flux Unit for Snow Metamorphism