NEW DELHI (PTI): Giving impetus to the vision of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and the 'Make in India' initiative, a testing and evaluation facility for sonar systems to be used by the Indian Navy has been launched by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, an official statement said on Monday.

It is a state-of-the-art system developed for use by the Navy onboard various platforms, including ships, submarines and helicopters, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

"Giving impetus to the 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and 'Make in India' commitment, the DRDO launched Hull Module of Submersible Platform for Acoustic Characterisation & Evaluation (SPACE) facility at Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), Kochi, recently," it said.

The SPACE facility is based on the concept design and requirements projected by NPOL and has been constructed by L&T Shipbuilding, Chennai, it said.

This will be mainly utilised for evaluating sonar systems, allowing for quick deployment and easy recovery of scientific packages such as sensors and transducers, it said.

The SPACE is one-of-a-kind facility in the world. The uniqueness of this facility lies in the specially designed submersible platform, which can be lowered up to depths of 100 metres using a series of synchronously operated winches, the statement said.

The design and construction of the platform meet all the statutory needs of Indian Register of Shipping and the vessel classifying authority and strictly adhere to the inspection and registration criteria as per Kerala Inland Vessel Rules, it said.