Sponsored by Blighter Surveillance Systems
www.blighter.com
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24 Feb 23. MARSS at IDEX. MARSS UAS interception – going one step further. Marss, the Monaco-based C-UAS specialist, showed the latest kinetic UAS counter measure which MARSS can integrate with its surveillance and intelligence platform at IDEX/. Nothing like it has ever been seen before. This benign solution permanently disables category 1 and 2 UAS at a much lower cost per defeat than a single-use explosive missile. It physically damages the target but without use of a warhead, so collateral damage is minimized. Delivered via a specialized UAS, its high speed, dynamic movement, lightweight but durable design and high intelligence are more than a match for those of enemy drones. The intelligent combined system uses image processing and machine learning to identify targets reliably. The UAS can turn around and disable several drones in one flight. Against category 1 drones, it returns undamaged for reuse. When disabling larger category 2 drones, it may be destroyed in the process – but its loss is still much less costly than use of a missile.
There are alternative products on the market which have been designed to collide with drones but these can only be used against smaller UAS, and even then they do not survive the encounter. Their range is around 1 km, compared to interceptor’s 7 km, and they are much slower.
Inherently safer than a conventional weapon, the new solution’s software places strict controls on who can use it, against what, and where, when and how. In short, it cannot be misused. Crucially, it dependably identifies non-targets – especially manned aircraft – and will autonomously abort actions mistakenly taken by operators against them. A key benefit is that it can be deployed and operated without the need for a military presence. MARSS also offer a C-UAS surveillance and intelligence platform which fills the previously vulnerable gap in defense between spot protection and the next level. Its defensive radius of 25+ km is at the top end for this type of system. Beyond 25 km, it integrates with national or other wider-scale systems focusing on ballistic attacks and fighter aircraft at higher altitudes and speeds.
Marrs also exhibited with Current cameras of Canada at NAVDEX. where it showed a new C-UAS system designed for superyachts which combines the Marss software with a Current Navigator 4000 Series camera and an Echodyne EchoGuard radar.
23 Feb 23. DroneOptID Firmware Update for Enhanced Drone Detection, ID and Tracking. DroneShield is pleased to announce the release of the latest update for its DroneOptID platform. DroneOptID is a computer vision-based system used to control various thermal and optical sensors, detect, classify and track small drones or UAV targets.
Customers enrolled in DroneShield’s DroneSentry-C2 with DroneOptID software subscription, receive quarterly updates to the proprietary DroneOptID classification engine. DroneOptID is a camera agnostic software solution and DroneShield offers multiple camera options along with it to support various customer use cases, performance and budget requirements.
Major upgrades include:
- Improved Scan Pattern Performance: Major performance improvement to the optical scan pattern algorithm for faster target acquisition from radar and RF detections.
- Improved Object Size Estimation: Significant improvement to the passive optical object size estimation, enabling dynamic optical distance estimation adjustments when distance was previously acquired by other sensors.
- Deep DroneOpt2 Integration: Full featured integration of the DroneOpt2 model supporting both thermal and optical feeds with DroneOptID classification.
- AI Model Optimisation: Detection model optimisation for faster acquisition and improved high-speed target optical tracking.
- Integration for Sensor Fusion Applications: DroneOptID provides data stream designed to integrate with Sensor Fusion based systems such as DroneSentry-C2.
- Reduced Optical False Detections: Expansion of the DroneOptID data sets, reducing false detection probability.
24 Feb 23. Fortem Technologies to expand counter-drone factory. US-based Fortem Technologies plans to nearly triple the size of its factory to meet growing demand for its counter-unmanned aerial vehicle (C-UAV) products, according to a company spokesperson.
The 35,000 sq ft (3,252 m²) facility will expand to about 100,000 sq ft in the next year, the spokesperson told Janes on 22 February. Citing security concerns, the spokesperson declined to disclose the location of the factory other than to say it is in the US.
To pay for the expansion, Fortem will use some of the USD17.8 m it generated from a recent fundraiser. Lockheed Martin Ventures, the venture capital arm of the US defence contractor, and South Korea-based Hanwha Aerospace were among the investors that participated in the fundraiser. The money will also bolster Fortem’s product development and sales and service capabilities.
Fortem’s products include the DroneHunter F700 UAV, which fires a net to capture a hostile drone and tow or parachute it to the ground. The company also offers TrueView radars and camera systems and the SkyDome Manager, which aggregates sensor data. (Source: Janes)
23 Feb 23. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has successfully moved its first Electronically-Scanned Multifunction Reconfigurable Integrated Sensor (EMRIS), a new ultra-wideband sensor, into integration and test. Northrop Grumman’s sophisticated multifunction sensors, including EMRIS, enable warfighters to accelerate decision timelines and act collectively.
“The sensor’s architecture is easily scaled and reconfigurable, including a variety of mounting configurations, for a wide applicability across platforms and domains,” said Krys Moen, vice president, advanced mission capabilities, Northrop Grumman. “By developing EMRIS in an open-architecture construct, we can rapidly add new or improved capabilities to increase performance while avoiding redesign. This supports decades of fielded use and continued access to industry best-in-class capabilities for the warfighter.”
EMRIS’s fully digital Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) utilizes technology from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Arrays on Commercial Timescales (ACT) program combined with government open-architecture standards. By applying the flexibility of a digital AESA, EMRIS can perform functions including radar, electronic warfare and communications simultaneously.
Multifunction apertures consolidate multiple functions into a single sensor, decreasing both the number of apertures needed and the size, weight and power requirements for the advanced capabilities. Sophisticated multifunction apertures like EMRIS can deploy several functions simultaneously. As part of EMRIS’s integration and test phase, Northrop Grumman is demonstrating the ability to quickly leverage technology developed for other programs to adapt multiple fielded capabilities into EMRIS.
EMRIS was designed using common building blocks and software containerization allowing for rapid, cost-effective production. The sensor’s design leverages commercial processes and materials, including 5G tech base, driving down cost and increasing the quality and reliability of the components.
22 Feb 23. HENSOLDT will supply another multi-mission surveillance radar PrecISR™ to one of the biggest airborne surveillance providers, CAE Aviation, Luxembourg. CAE Aviation, which operates a large fleet of surveillance aircraft, has decided to renew its trust in HENSOLDT by awarding them with a contract to deliver another PrecISR™1000. This is the second order, after HENSOLDT having delivered the first PrecISR™ in 2021.
PrecISR™ radars are currently operated by experienced ISR operators from CAE Aviation in challenging areas of operations for various types of missions and for very demanding end-users.
PrecISR™ offers impressive Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) / Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) capabilities, enabling its operators to detect and track, in real time, a very large diversity of small moving targets of interest (troops, convoys, suspicious vehicles, etc..). PrecISR™ technology ensures a reliable and accurate surveillance of static and moving threats, despite adverse weather conditions which might obstruct the EO/IR sensor results.
“We feel really proud that CAE Aviation keeps investing in new ISR capabilities by maintaining its trust in our plug-and-play high performance radar”, said Pierre Marquis, Sales Director Airborne ISR Radars at HENSOLDT.
“The versatility of the Hensoldt PrecISR™ 1000 radar allows us to meet the needs of our most demanding customers, regardless of the mission profiles we perform “, said David Attali, CEO at CAE Aviation.
PrecISR™ is the right solution for an operational and battle proven multi-mission radar system. Because of its compact design, the airborne platform integration of PrecISR™ is simplified significantly compared to other radars.
The superior performance of PrecISR™ enables airborne operators to accomplish large area surveillance in one flight pass and get top-notched results in real time up to 370km range. Even in the most difficult environmental conditions and sea states, PrecISR™ operators will take advantage of an unrivalled level of situational awareness with significant flight cost savings.
22 Feb 23. TEKEVER, the European market leader in unmanned aerial systems and intelligence-as-a-service solutions, announces it has successfully added GAMASAR to its AR5 UAS. GAMASAR is a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) designed and built by TEKEVER to support Aerial and Space-based Earth Observation, which is now available on both AR5 and AR3 systems to support the most demanding maritime and land missions. Developed by TEKEVER’s Space division, GAMASAR has the ability to detect multiple types of objects in all-weather conditions, making it the perfect tool to support maritime and land-based wide-area surveillance missions.
The integration of SAR payloads typically imposes a significant tradeoff in operational capabilities, especially in smaller UAS platforms. By having an integrated design approach between GAMASAR and its UAS product-lines, and having an extremely deep level of integration between the sensor, the platform and the rest of its sensors, TEKEVER is now able to offer unprecedented capabilities for both AR3 and AR5 in their respective UAS classes.
By adding GAMASAR to its payload package, the TEKEVER AR5 can now offer users a vastly increased operational performance, and the ability to effectively detect targets under any weather condition, day and night, over extremely wide areas. The combined usage of Ka/Ku Band SATCOM, capable of delivering more than 4Mbits in BRLOS, and GAMASAR, with up to 40km dual-side looking detection range, makes the AR5 an extremely effective tool for any type of wide-area surveillance mission. With an MTOW below 200Kg, and more than 12h of operational endurance, the TEKEVER AR5 is, by far, the most advanced system in its class, and can provide customers around the world with a highly mobile, simple to use and very cost effective tool to help deliver their mission.
Besides being already fully integrated on both the AR3 and AR5 platforms, TEKEVER’s Space division is also developing GAMASAR versions to support micro-satellite constellations. By applying advanced AI capabilities to fused Space and UAS-based SAR data, TEKEVER believes it can provide customers with a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of all activities being performed in their regions of interest.
TEKEVER’s CEO, Ricardo Mendes commented: “Our SAR, which we decided to name “GAMASAR” in honour of the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama, was designed and built to enable our customers with the capabilities that are typically only available through much larger systems. With an extremely reduced logistics footprint and the unique capabilities provided by GAMASAR, the AR5 is a game-changer that provides our customers with tremendous value and cost effectiveness”.
20 Feb 23. South Korea “to install C-UAS systems at all major critical infrastructure sites.” The South Korean government has announced plans to deploy counter-UAS equipment at all the nation’s major infrastructure facilities, reports The Korea Herald.
“The meeting of the 16th National Counter Terrorism Committee, convened by Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, approved the government’s plan of deploying the anti-drone system to key facilities, including oil refineries and power plants, in stages of order of importance,” according to the newspaper report of February 17. “The government will also seek to actively support and promote research and development of anti-drone technology and amend related laws and systems to step up South Korea’s readiness against potential drone attacks by terrorists.”
“Han called for the country to strengthen anti-drone capabilities and reinforce preparedness against the malicious use of armed-drones by terrorist organizations, explaining that the government sees terrorism will remain a global threat in light of continuing political unrest in some African countries and the expansion of terrorist groups in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. In addition, the government decided to establish a new counter-terrorism unit under the auspice of the police in 18 strategically important regions, such as the Ulsan metropolitan city where power plants and oil refineries are stationed.
“Other regions include the Gangwon Province borders with North Korea, as well as North Chungcheong Province where the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and Health Technology Administration are based.”
For more information: https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230217000559 (Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
14 Feb 23. Cambridge Pixel upgrades its visual security display software to meet growing demands of security sector. Cambridge Pixel has upgraded its security solution for integrating radars, cameras and other devices, says the company press release. The newly upgraded VSD software provides support for new radars including Echodyne, Blighter and FLIR, as well as expanding support for video tracking with the OpenWorks video tracking system. Laser range finders and laser dazzlers are also added to the list of supported devices.
Visual Security Display (VSD) software provides the capability to combine the long-range detection of threats using radar with target tracking and identification from automatically slewed cameras. The software can generate alarms on triggered events to turn on and control external equipment such as loud hailing and laser dazzling devices. With a focus on the growing demands of security, including drone detection, C-UAS and asset protection, the latest software upgrade offers enhanced video blending to combine imagery from daylight and thermal cameras and user threat classification.
Launching the upgraded VSD at their stand in the UK pavilion at IDEX 2023, Abu Dhabi, Cambridge Pixel demonstrates to customers how the highly customisable solution can be tailored to different applications within the defence and security industries.
Commenting on the development, VSD’s product manager Andrew Haylett said, “VSD is part of a family of software components and applications from Cambridge Pixel aimed at making sense of complex sensor information from radars, cameras and laser detectors. Additional options available include full recording of sensor data, as well as simulation of radar and camera video for training and system evaluation.”
For more information visit: www.cambridgepixel.com (Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
18 Feb 23. SkeyDrone Radar Pro supports cooperative and non-cooperative drone detection.
Belgian Uncrewed Traffic Management (UTM) company SkeyDrone has launched SkeyDrone Radar Pro to meet growing demand for drone detection and counter drone capabilities.
SkeyDrone worked with Senhive to build a drone detection solution designed for law enforcement agencies and operators of critical infrastructures such as seaports, airports and utility companies. The software integrates detection data from modular detection equipment (receivers), enriches the drone aerial picture with several other relevant data sources and correlates detected drones with flight plans and authorisations from UTM systems operated by Geozone managers such as air traffic control units and port authorities.
SkeyDrone Radar Pro combines and fuses the feed from multiple sources into a complete and reliable aerial picture to detect both cooperative (Direct Remote ID) and non-cooperative drones (RF Frequency Analysis), says the company press release. It also integrates the authorised flight plans from friendly UTM systems active in the same area of observation, to identify those drones with permission to fly.
SkeyDrone Radar Pro is designed to address two primary issues with current drone detection and monitoring systems available in the market. First, one-sensor solutions, passive or active, only provide a portion of the picture and lack the depth needed to truly provide indications and warnings of drone flight and, more importantly, the risk they represent. Second, layering multiple sensors into one complete aerial picture is extremely complex and therefore costly.
As of 2024, all commercial drones are obliged to be “cooperative” and share their identification number and position through a technology called Direct Remote ID. However, it is still necessary to separate drones that have received prior Flight Authorisation from those that have not. For more information: www.skeydrone.aero
(Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
20 Feb 23. Ukrainian company Kvertus “supplying 180 KVS G-6 drone jammers to Ukrainian forces.”
A Linkedin post from counter-UAS specialist Tim De Zitter reports that the Ukrainian company Kvertus Technology has supplied more than 80 of its KVS G-6 long range anti-drone jammers to Ukranian forces, with over 100 on order. The report is based on a June 2022 video.
“The weapon, manufactured in the Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk, has a range of up to three kilometers, or around 1.8 miles, and can operate for up to 30 minutes at a time, according to the company,” a Ukrainian source was quoted in the article. “Once disconnected, the drone loses coordination and either lands where it is jammed or is blown away by the wind. Ukrainian forces can then take the drone and read its data to gain valuable information about it, such as where it came from and any images it might have taken.”
The devices are reported to cost USD12,000 each.
For more information
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-de-zitter/
(Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
20 Feb 23. Canadian Army “issues urgent operational request” for counter-UAS systems.”
Multiple news sources report that the Canadian Army is fast-tracking its purchase of counter-UAS systems to its troops stationed in Latvia.
According to TFI Global News: “the Canadian Army will buy a counter-drone system to be used for Operation Reassurance, the Canadian Forces mission in eastern Europe. The equipment is being classified as an Urgent Operational Requirement, the same process used during the Afghanistan war to speedily obtain gear without going through the slower traditional procurement process.”
In September 2019, Canada’s Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) programme hosted a sandbox challenge in Suffield, Alberta, selected a dozen companies to demonstrate how they might identify, track and even destroy individual and swarming drones.
According to an August 2022 article in Canadian Army Today: “This October, IDEaS is going back to the sandbox to gauge how counter UAS technology has evolved and evaluate how well it can be integrated with Canadian Armed Forces command and control systems.”
(Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
20 Feb 23. ‘Smaller, better, cheaper’ — the rise of portable drone interceptors. Manufacturers of counter-drone weaponry say they are increasingly miniaturizing and simplifying their solutions to meet rising demand for man-portable weapons, as recent conflicts have accentuated the importance of mobile capabilities.
Man-portable, counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) have been around for some time, however, with the growing threat of weaponized commercial drones in recent years, their proliferation has accelerated. In a 2019 C-UAS database report compiled by the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, out of 537 market products analyzed, 111 (21%) were hand-held solutions, offered by over 29 different countries.
Warren Brown, vice president of Marketing at Fortem Technologies, explains that the purpose and ways these systems are used today have also changed over the last decade. “Historically, security detail and protection of major events or key infrastructure has been focused on fixed solutions. The more recent conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have shifted the focus to ‘on-the-move’ systems that provide advanced radar detection capabilities, ease of deployment and portability, low overall cost of operation as well as low per-use cost,” he said. There seems to have also been to an extent a change in the belief that C-UAS measures must be large in order to be good.
Previously, many militaries relied on more conventional jamming alternatives to counter hostile drones, either because they lacked the access or resources to acquire more proper and reliable systems. However, Brown states that resorting to deploy legacy equipment is not always effective, as they were not necessarily developed to address the full and ever-evolving technology behind drone threats.
“Traditional jamming solutions have had a low success rate, forcing the use of costly and impractical systems such as larger missile weapons, and even deploying fighter aircraft to attempt to mitigate the threat – often ineffective on small, maneuverable and hard-to-detect UAVs,” he said. Such a scenario was most recently on display in South Korea’s failed attempt to shoot down its neighbors’ drones for several hours.
Manufacturers have taken notice of these issues, building on existing technologies but reimagining them to more effectively address the dangers drones pose, specifically smaller ones that may be harder to counter. In May 2022, Fortem Technology sent its man-portable DroneHunters to Ukraine, stating in a press release that it had taken the pre-existing C-UAS system and further miniaturized and simplified it for use as an expeditionary rapid deployment weapon.
Matt McCrann, CEO of DroneShield, believes this is telling of where these types of technologies are heading. “Absolutely, the goal is always to take a capability and make it easier to use, more effective and cost-effective. Smaller, better and cheaper,” he said.
DroneShield’s hand-held countermeasures, such as its DroneGuns, provide a number of advantages. As a small and lightweight system, it is an easily transportable C-UAS capability that can be stowed in a vehicle, rucksack or body-work with a sling as the battlefield shifts. Powered by swappable batteries, DroneGuns are non-kinetic, utilizing an electronic attack method meaning that they can provide unlimited “rounds” which is more economical than kinetic systems and safer to operate with minimal training required.
In a similar fashion, other man-portable systems such as Fortem’s DroneHunters F700, present countries with a lower per-use cost alternative than other pricier systems on the market. On this, Brown points out that each shot of their weapon costs only a few hundred dollars, considerably cheaper than high-energy systems like Electro-Magnetic Pulse (laser) weapons, which also require extensive power source.
An additional benefit of the Fortem system for neutralizing drones is that the system can take them down in a controlled manner with a drogue parachute, allowing for reconnaissance and analysis of the enemy system as well as reducing collateral damage. This is in contrast to more conventional defensive techniques that can cause the hostile UAV to explode or fall from the sky, often damaging in the process civilians and infrastructure, or allowing it to return to its launch point with no potential study of its mission or where it came from.
Brown claims that in Fortem’s 5,000-plus documented captures, its solutions have a success rate of 92%. DroneHunters further deployed to protect multiple stadiums during the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. For DroneShield, McCrann says that their operational effectiveness have been high in both military and more traditional security environments, pointing to the recent instance where its DroneGun Tactical was used to neutralize 4 hovering drones during the presidential inauguration in Brazil.
Despite the advantages these systems offer, McCrann warns that shrinking any given capability generally involves one or several tradeoffs. “For electronic countermeasures, that (miniaturizing) tradeoff is usually seen in the total output power of the system where smaller may indicate its less effective range and the need to get in closer,” he explains. However, in a drone-on-drone scenario, such as with the DroneHunter or similar systems, that tradeoff of an electronic warfare payload might be acceptable because the engagement happens at close range anyway.
(Source: C4ISR & Networks)
17 Feb 23. RAFAEL’s Enhanced TYPHOON C-UAS Capabilities & 6th Gen. Naval SPIKE NLOS on Display. RAFAEL is arriving at NAVDEX after completing a unique live fire demonstration with successful interception rates. RAFAEL’s TYPHOON RCWS, successfully demonstrated Counter-UAS (C-UAS) capabilities in a series of tests and scenarios conducted in the last month. These new capabilities will be shown with footage of various interceptions at sea.
As a world leader with a global install base of more than 750 medium caliber Stabilized naval RCWS Systems, RAFAEL is offering its TYPHOON Mk30-c and TYPHOON 25 mm class (in service with several navies around the world, including the US navy) as a solution for airborne, marine, and shore-based threats, including C-UAS.
RAFAEL’s new Naval SPIKE NLOS (non-line-of-sight) 6th Generation missiles will also be showcased. These new missiles can turn any OPV or patrol boat into a highly effective combat vessel, with advanced capabilities against all naval and coastal threats. Naval SPIKE NLOS provides pinpoint accuracy with a maximum range of 32 km, using electro-optical guidance and advanced fire control. This combat-proven system is operational in various navies worldwide and is compatible with a range of warheads, including High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT), Penetration Blast Fragmentation (PBF), with warhead detonation control, and fragmentation. SPIKE family systems have been sold to 39 countries worldwide, including 19 NATO countries.
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Blighter Surveillance Systems is a world-leading designer and manufacturer of best-in-class electronic-scanning ground-based radars, surveillance solutions and Counter-UAS systems. Blighter’s solid-state micro-Doppler products are deployed in more than 35 countries across the globe, delivering consistent all-weather security protection and wide area surveillance along borders, coastlines, at military bases and across critical infrastructure such as airports, oil and gas facilities and palaces. Blighter radars are also used to protect manoeuvre force missions when deployed on military land vehicles and trailers, and its world-beating multi-mode radar represents a great leap in threat detection technology and affordability for use in a variety of scenarios.
The Blighter range of radar products are used for detecting a variety of threats, from individuals on foot to land vehicles, boats, drones and low-flying aircraft at ranges of up to 32 km. Blighter Surveillance Systems employs 40 people and is located near Cambridge, UK, where it designs, produces and markets its range of unique patented solid-state radars. Blighter prides itself on being an engineer-led business committed to providing cost-effective and flexible solutions across the defence, critical infrastructure and national security markets.
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