EURSATORY is one of the world’s premier defense and security expositions. It’s held every other year in Paris, France, at Parc des Expositions Paris Nord Villepinte. This year the conference/exhibition brought together 1761 exhibitors and over 70,000 attendees. The United States was represented by 144 exhibitors displaying everything from sniper platforms to armor vehicles all under one roof in the company of other global competitors. A must attend event for anyone in the Defense Industry.
There are two EU conference / exhibitions that rank as the world’s largest and they are DSEi, in London, and EUROSATORY in Paris. If you’re interested in seeing the depth and breath of the global defense industry both events will get you there.
This year’s EUROSATORY confirms the growing role that UAV and sUAV (small UAV) will play in law enforcement, border security, counterterror and military operations. UAVs and their corresponding payloads are being developed at a near exponential rate, and you may reasonably expect that the UAV of 2019-2022 will play play a role in CBRNe, ISR and C4ISR as well as modular directed weapons systems capable of delivering any number of tailor made ordnance packages. This is true of man-packable drones as well as the larger remotely piloted drones.
Along with expanded drone and payload development, counter-drone technology is also emerging ranging from short range portable handheld jammers that interrupt an sUAV’s control link to large systems capable of detecting drones at ranges in excess of 20 kilometers then direct high powered lasers to engage an intruding drone, and with a 3 second burn take down the drone.
One very promising and capable system by Skylock Anti-Drone Systems, part of the Avnon Group, Israel, leverages the company’s core competence in anti-drone technologies to produce a counter UAV system that’s quite impressive and very capable.
The unit on the left of the picture is a continuous wave radar. There is no scan or pulse repetition rate, it simply emits a continuous r.f. wave that will detect an incoming drone at extended ranges up to 20km. The radar was presented as omnidirectional but I suspect that it’s closer to a cardioid pattern and not a full 360 degrees. Once it detects a target, the radar passes range and azimuth data to the unit on the right hand side of the picture whose job it is to track and engage the drone with a 3 second laser burn. It can also jam the drone signal should that be required. The Skylock Anti-Drone system can be vehicle mounted or pedestal mounted at an airport location or other critical infrastructure.
Other major players in the counter-UAV space include Germany’s Hensoldt but there are numerous multinationals working on a variety of countermeasures. In addition to counter-UAV technologies, a number of companies are now engaged in developing encryption technologies to protect the video downlinks and control signals.
I’ll be covering more of Eurosatory 2018 in subsequent articles, but for now I’d like to leave you with a view of the capabilities demonstrations, held throughout the event, featuring RAID, BRI, GIGN and French Special Forces. The slide presentation below captures these demonstrations.
FOG HORN 