During the Sri Lankan Civil War the separatist militants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam made extensive use of Claymore mines and Improvised Explosive Devices which were often detonated wirelessly and the Sri Lankan government was finding it hard to procure enough jammers from international markets. Thus the Centre for Research and Development was founded in 2006 at the Panagoda cantonment consisting of a group of Army personnel working together with engineering faculties of various universities. These allowed to both disrupt the signals as well as detect and detonate mines planted by the LTTE. known as the K3 Jammer the initial manpack version was effective up to a modest 100m and later K3V vehicular version was subsequently used by the Army when providing security to VIPs. CRD later developed mobile phone jammers for prisons as well as GPS Jammers and Satellite Phone jammers. Most of CRD's early projects involved the modification of the military's existing equipment such as the development of rugged RA 400 Cougar Fist Microphone developed for Cougar Radios by the CRD and also modified to be used with the PRC 1077 VHF Tactical Radios. However, since then the CRD has been expanding and has begun new projects and also begun R&D projects involving civilian or dual use technologies. The CRD has developed a Helium Balloon-based Stationary Surveillance Platform equipped with PTZ and infrared cameras, Demining Machines, Voice Encryption Devices for telephones and radios, high nutrition/ high caloric ration packs alongside packaging material and containers,GPS-based Vehicle Tracking Devices and Fleet Management Systems, WS30 Stabilized Weapon System for Naval vessels developed in cooperation with EM Digital. The CRD has also developed numerous simulators for training including realistic flight simulator, flight control simulator, field artillery simulator, simulators for jungle lane firing etc. CRD also developed civilian use technologies such as a Train Tracking and Operating Information System for Sri Lankan Railways, Braile to Sinhala Converter, GPS-enabled Quadcopters alongside 3D modeling tools for drone mapping and disaster management as well as a web-based Global Disaster Risk Analysis, Prevention and Mitigation Application. CRD is currently designing and developing Unmanned Vehicle systems including a medium range UAV, avionics and a ground control station and has built several prototypes such as UX-I, UX-II B, UX-IIC and UX-IIC Extended UAVs as well as Unmanned Underwater Vehicle for the Navy called MAGURA. CRD MLRS project resulted in a locally developed 122mm MLRS system with rockets including fuel, launcher, hydraulic control unit and digital fire control system which was displayed on the 71st Independence Day Parade. CRD is also developing a naval variant of the MLRS. Further a missile guidance system is also being developed. However the CRD is constrained by the lack of resources including funding, facilities and researchers and as of 2018 only 8 of 15 wings are active and several projects have been suspended due to the lack of resources.
Organization Structure
The Headquarters CRD acts as the Command and Control arm of the CRD headed by a Director General equivalent to a Major General and assisted by staff consisting of a Deputy Director General and Staff Officers. The CRD is organized into four main Divisions with the Technical & Material Division being responsible for conducting research and development. The Technical and Material Division is composed of 15 Wings, each headed by a Chief Coordinator in the rank of Colonel or equivalent, however as of 2018 only 8 Wings are fully operational. The Divisions and fully operational Wings as of 2018 are,
