The misuse of small, widely available drones represents a significant and growing risk to NATO operations and day-to-day defence activity.
NATO is working with industry to develop capabilities to counter this threat. A trial of various counter-drone technologies and systems was undertaken at an airbase in the Netherlands. The exercise, C-UAS TIE 21 (Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Technical Interoperability Exercise) brought together specialists from across the civilian, military, scientific and industry world in order to test emerging technologies and integrate systems that will counter small drones.
The goals of the testing were to identify a minimum set of standards relevant for the NATO C-UAS domain; facilitate the implementation of these standards in a collaborative environment; demonstrate interoperability between C-UAS components and fully integrated systems in NATO-relevant scenarios; and evaluate C-UAS technical architectures and identify standardization gaps.
The achievement of so-called ‘zero-second integration’ was also an objective; the ability to link various sensor and detection systems together instantly without the need for software or hardware adaptations.
August 12, 2011
NATO Channel