Drones and Remotely Operated Munitions (ROVs) now hold a central place on the battlefield. The ongoing high-intensity war between Ukraine and Russia is evidence of this strategic shift that is reshaping the future of air-land combat. To meet the equipment needs of armed forces in France and abroad, Thales is investing and increasing its firepower in this key area.
High Attrition Rates
Contact drones allow forces to act faster on the battlefield, with greater efficiency and without exposing soldiers to additional risk, all at a moderate cost. They have become strategic assets, which is the reason for their success. However, their attrition rates remain high.
Over 10,000 drones are destroyed every month in Ukraine.The lifespan of a drone rarely exceeds 5 flights.
The heterogeneity of the drone fleet, the command and control systems, the lack of secure communication links, and their vulnerability to electronic warfare countermeasures are their main weaknesses.
To better protect them and increase their combat effectiveness, recent operational feedback shows that forces need to have a complete range of solutions available:
- Rustic drones produced in large quantities, therefore inexpensive, through a simplified acquisition process.
- Drones with a sufficient level of sophisticated features to operate in contested environments (jamming communication links, denying GNSS signals).
- Drones incorporating AI to navigate even without GPS, designate targets, and provide autonomy.
- Improved payloads, including optical, electronic warfare, or military capabilities, especially for ROVs.
- Robust, cyber-secure, and stable data links.
- Highly mobile and standardized command/control (C2) stations capable of operating different platforms by a dismounted or vehicle operator, or even within more integrated systems.
Therefore, three key axes can be identified :
- Quantity and variety to cope with attrition and facilitate mission adaptation.
- Innovation to ensure equipment resilience in contested environments and maintain the element of surprise on the ground.
- Integration into maneuver operations
Thales’ Drone Warfare Approach
This is indeed the objective of Thales’ Drone Warfare approach presented in Paris during the “JIDAC” (Journée des Industriels des Drones Aériens de Contact) on May 28th, 2024, to all the actors of the French drone ecosystem.
As a concrete response to the need for a short circuit between the Defense and Security Industry Base (BITD) and theaters of operations, Thales, as a system architect and integrator, proposes to be the facilitator of an open, integrated, and standardized contact drone ecosystem, where every actor of the BITD will find its place.
The objective of this ecosystem is to provide a complete and coherent portfolio of drone solutions that can easily be integrated into combat systems, covering the full range of “contact drones” – from nanodrones to Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drones – useful for the lowest tactical levels of ground forces up to interarm brigade levels.
These solutions will take into account the prerequisites of high-intensity warfare: standardization of interfaces, 3D deconfliction, and interoperability, which are essential for the armed forces. They will be able to accommodate system evolutions and the integration of new key components, with AI being a primary focus.
Only an organized ecosystem can meet the requirements of performance, quantity, availability, cost, and services imposed by current conflicts and future conflicts.
“We offer French (or other) drone users an open architecture comprising multiple elements – payloads, avionics, command/control systems, data links – within which industrial actors can make their innovative technological components available to develop rapidly deployable drone systems that are useful for each mission profile”
explains Gilles Labit, Director of the Contact Drones Department at Thales.
Already joining Thales’ Drone Warfare offering are the French companies AERIX SYSTEMS, AEROMAPPER , AVIATION DESIGN UAV, EOS Technologie, CLOUDSKEYES, ELISTAIR, HEXADRONE, HIONOS, LYNRED, MERIO, MILTON, PARROT, SCALIAN, SQUADRONE SYSTEM.
Drones and AI
If drones have become strategic on the battlefield, the number of operators and the availability of the radio communications spectrum remain limiting factors for more extensive drone usage. In Ukraine, there is one operator behind each drone.
To overcome these limitations and achieve decisive saturation effects on the field, it is necessary to give drones as much autonomy as possible to operate in swarms. Only trustworthy AI will enable the development of systems capable of managing such complexity while providing a simple and intuitive Human-Machine Interface (HMI) that allows the operator to maintain permanent control of the mission without increasing their cognitive load.
The technological challenges related to the AI capabilities of drones include:
- Geolocation and navigation in GNSS-deprived environments
- Mission planning and swarm coordination
- Functional architecture for autonomy
The French Army currently has 100,000 personnel and 5,000 drones. Perhaps in 20 years, thanks to autonomy, it could have a structure of 50,000 personnel, 50,000 drones, and 100,000 ground robots.
Source: Thales