PANJIM: Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday flagged off a sonar dome which has been indigenously designed and manufactured in India. For the first time in the country and in Goa, Kineco, a Goan first generation company, has manufactured a huge bow mounted sonar dome for Naval warships in Pilerne. The sonar dome has been designed by R&D Engineers, a DRDO Laboratory based in Pune.
“Only a couple of companies in the world have the capability to realise such a complex and structurally demanding structure in composites,” said Shekhar Sardessai, Executive Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Kineco Limited. Though the business has a potential of spinning several hundred crores of rupees, the company official refrained from spelling out the details of the amount invested in this project.
This is a huge step for Goa in the field of defence manufacturing. All warships 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.
Kineco, a two-decade-old company, ventured into defence and aerospace composites space about a decade ago. With many baby steps to start with, and significant investments in technology and human capital over the last five years, Kineco has carved a niche for itself.
Apart from sonar domes, Kineco also manufactures airframe structures for India’s strategic missile programmes, large radomes for defence radars and is also in the process of developing light weight carbon fibre bridge structure for military applications.
Kineco is in a joint venture with Kaman Aerospace Group of USA, which has also become a significant player in the field of aerospace composites. Kineco Kaman manufactures composite parts for Boeing P8 aircrafts for BAE Systems USA, antennas for Indian navigation satellites and parts for advance light helicopters (DHRUV) made by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
Kineco recently received investment from Helios Strategic Systems Limited, a subsidiary of Indo National Limited – manufacturers of Nippo range of dry cell batteries. This investment and partnership with Indo National has significantly strengthened Kineco’s financial position and its ability to invest in its growth.