Mr P Sampathkumar has taken charge as Chief Technology Officer (CTO-Communication) of Navratna Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL). He was working as Additional General Manager (AGM) of BEL’s Design & Engineering Division (D&E) of Military Communication (Milcom) Strategic Business Unit (SBU) at Bangalore, and AGM (Production-Milcom)/BEL-Bangalore, before his elevation.

Mr Sampathkumar joined BEL’s Bangalore Unit on December 1, 1986, as Probationary Engineer after completing BE in Electronics & Communication Engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University, Chennai. In a career spanning over the last 33 years, he has worked in various capacities and gained rich experience in diverse technologies of BEL.

He was involved in the Production & Testing of Communication products and setting up of Automatic Testing Equipment (ATE) facilities for various types of Military Communication equipment during his early days at BEL’s Military Communication & Electronic Warfare SBU. He also gained domain expertise in testing of Fire Control Radars working as Testing Engineer.

He was Project Manager for the execution of a World Bank project for establishing radio communication network in Tamil Nadu. In 2004, he moved to D&E, piloted and executed various in-house, indigenous and joint development projects successfully.

During his tenure in D&E, Mr Sampathkumar contributed to the design and development of portable and static HF Radios, which have been supplied in large numbers to the Ministry of Home Affairs and also exported. He has established a good design base for BEL in RF Design, Power Amplifier and Antenna Tuning Unit in Military Communication. He was instrumental in the indigenous development of Software Defined Radio (SDR), in collaboration with DRDO labs DEAL and CAIR, which resulted in significant business growth for the Company.

His D&E team received the prestigious Raksha Mantri Award in 2010 for the development of encryption HF Radio. Mr Sampathkumar also won the BEL R&D Award twice for his design efforts. He initiated the development of many new Military Communication projects to address the requirements of Army, Navy, Air Force and Paramilitary Forces.

From December 2019, as AGM (Production-Milcom)/BEL-Bangalore, he steered manufacturing of various types of Radios for Tactical, Shipborne and Missile applications. He also played a key role in the CV 200 Ventilator project before his elevation as CTO (Communication).