April 18, 2015: The Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS), currently developing India's AEW&C and AWACS platforms, is scouting a joint venture partner to develop advanced operator workstations for applications in its airborne platforms. The main objective of the effort is to design, develop, qualify and deliver advanced console units qualified to meet the airborne and harsh ground requirements for present and future CABS projects. The laboratory is looking for a modular development that can be incrementally improved for future projects, including special mission aircraft and spy planes. While CABS will provide technical inputs and qualitative requirements, the chosen vendor will carry out fabrication, testing and evaluation as per finalised requirements. Vendors will be required to quote the cost of 50-100 consoles supplied over 5-8 years. Vendors with experience in delivering similar systems to Indian aerospace firms or global majors will obviously be preferred. Overall, the console will be built around a 24-inch high definition display unit, three rugged computer units, one tablet unit for touch inputs. The entire unit will be hard-mounted on the aircraft floorboard.