Dr. Shailendra V Gade
Dr. Shailendra V Gade
Outstanding Scientist & Director General - Armament & Combat Engineering Systems (ACE)

Dr. Shailendra V Gade, Outstanding Scientist has been appointed as ‘The Director General (Armament and Combat Engineering Systems DG (ACE) Pune w. e. f. 1st Sep 2022. As DG (ACE) he is heading 9 Laboratories of DRDO namely ARDE Pune, HEMRL Pune, R & D E (E) Pune, MSC Pune, ACEM Nasik, VRDE Ahmednagar, CVRDE Chennai, PXE Balasore and DGRE Chandigarh & Manali. He joined ARDE (DRDO) Pune in Mar 87. In Jul 2021, he was appointed as Director VRDE Ahmednagar.

Dr. Shailendra V Gade obtained B. E. in Mech. Engineering from NIT Raipur in 1985. He pursued post graduation (M. Tech.) in Mech. Engg. (Design) from IIT Bombay and Ph. D from IIT Delhi in the area of High velocity impact.

Dr. Gade as Project Director ATAGS, has spearheaded the flagship and one of the most ambitious project of DRDO ‘155 mm x 52 Calibre Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS)’ at ARDE. The ATAGS is arguably the best Artillery Gun system of the world. Under his leadership, ten fully integrated ATAGS have been realized achieving all the QR parameters. The systems have undergone winter PSQR trials at SFFR Sikkim in Feb 2021 and summer PSQR trials at PFFR Pokharan in Apr 22 successfully and demonstrated their fire power and mobility in different terrains. Based on the success of the project, DAC has approved AON for 307 Nos. of ATAGS to be manufactured by two Industry Partners.

Dr. Gade initially worked on the Design and development of Launcher System for 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 at ARDE and led the team successfully towards realizing, Joint Venture Protective Carbine (JVPC), Under Barrel Grenade Launcher (UBGL), Multi-Calibre Individual Weapon System (MCIWS), Air Bursting Grenade (ABG) apart from improvements in the INSAS Small Arms. Dr. S V Gade 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. The Army is constantly working towards implementing the concept of F-INSAS in Indian army.

Dr. Gade has led the team in developing the Armament System for Infantry Combat Vehicle (ICV) for DRDO’s project Abhay. Abhay was equipped with a 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 various FSAPDS and practice Ammn. for MBT Arjun and other main Battle tanks. He has been associated with several critical projects at VRDE namely Wheeled Armoured Platform 8x8 (WhAP), Infantry Protected Mobility Vehicle (IPMV), CBRN (Tracked), CBRN (Wheeled), 70 Tonne Trailer for MBT Arjun, 155 mmx 52 Cal MGS, 180 HP engine for UAV Rustom Mark II, Robotic Kit for Autonomous driving (UGV). He is also spearheading several strategic systems projects.

Technical Expertise: Dr Gade has expertise in the design of Small Arms, Artillery and tank Guns, Modeling & Simulations, Manufacturing technologies, System-Integration, Test & Evaluation, Composite materials, All Electric servo control, Electrohydraulic control systems, Kinematics & Synthesis of mechanisms, Materials engineering, Kinetic energy Ammunition, Numerical simulation of penetration mechanisms, behaviour of materials at high strain rate, surface engineering technologies etc.

Honours and Awards: Recipient of DRDO Performance Excellence Award 2002 (for Pinaka), Team Leader award for ‘Modern Sub Machine Carbine’ in 2006, Team Leader award for Armament System for ICV Abhay in 2008, DRDO ‘Scientist of the Year award 2013’,Team leader award for Air Bursting grenade in 2015, Team Leader award for ATAGS in 2017, DRDO ‘Agni Award for Excellence in Self Reliance 2017’ for ATAGS. Recently declared DRDO Award 2020 for Best innovation/Futuristic Development as a Team Leader. Under his leadership, VRDE has been announced Silicon Trophy for 2020.

Research Guide & Publications: Guided B Tech & M Tech students as Project Guide. He has more than 40 papers to his credit in National & International Journals. He has been delivering technical lectures in the Infantry and Artillery International conferences.

Membership of Professional Bodies: He is a member of many professional societies.

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