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.
Footage includes various counter-drone technologies in action, drone flights and interviews with military and civilian specialists.
Transcript
(00:00) POV GO-PRO SHOT OF A DRONE HUNTER FIRING NETTING AT A TARGET DRONE
(00:21) SLOW MOTION SHOT OF A DRONE HUNTER FIRING NETTING AT A TARGET DRONE (MUTE)
(00:32) WIDE SHOT OF A DRONE HUNTER FIRING NETTING AT A TARGET DRONE
(00:37) MEDIUM SHOT OF A DRONE HUNTER TAKING OFF
(00:43) MEDIUM SHOT TARGET DRONE CAUGHT IN NET
(00:52) CLOSE UP DRONE REMOTE CONTROL
(00:57) CLOSE UP HUNTER DRONE BEING CARRIED FROM LAUNCH PAD
(01:05) SLOW MOTION SHOT OF A HUNTER DRONE ON FIELD X2
(01:12) MEDIUM SHOT OF A DRONE CONTROLLER AND A DRONE JAMMING DEVICE IN ACTION
(01:20) A GERMAN SOLDIER PICKS UP A SHOULDER-MOUNTED DRONE JAMMING DEVICE
(01:30) SLOW MOTION SHOTS OF A GERMAN SOLDIER WITH SHOULDER-MOUNTED JAMMING DEVICE X 4
(01:54) FIXED WING UAV FLYING X2
(02:08) CLOSE SHOT RADAR SYSTEM
(02:12) ITALIAN FIXED-WING UAV PILOT WALKING WITH DRONE X3
(02:27) ITALIAN FIXED-WING UAV PILOTS WITH CONTROLS X2
(02:36) ITALIAN FIXED WING UAV TAKING OFF
(02:41) ITALIAN FIXED WING UAV PILOT ON RADIO
(02:44) VARIOUS SHOTS OF COMPUTERS AT CENTRAL COMMAND ROOM DURING EXERCISE
(03:00) WIDE SHOT OF DRONE SWARM MAKING SHAPE OF NATO STAR
(03:32) WIDE SHOT OF DRONE SWARM SPELLING OUT C-UAS TIE 21
SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH - DR CRISTIAN COMAN, NATO COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION AGENCY (NCIA)
‘Within the Alliance there is a multiplication effect that you will see when everyone works in the same direction and we can talk to each other the same language. And I’m saying here not only speaking French and English as languages but also speaking technical languages, the same language. So for NATO it’s important to make sure that when nations are procuring capabilities and investing money in this capability, their capabilities can be employed together into a joint area of operations such that we can achieve this multiplication effect of an alliance.’
SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH - MAJOR KOEDAM, ROYAL NETHERLANDS AIR FORCE
‘The reason for this event is to bring all together. In NATO there are so many countries, so many systems, and we want to have them integrated. And this is basically the intent of this exercise, to try to find ways to integrate all these different systems to bring a common operational picture. An operational picture brings so many advantages when trying to mitigate this drone threat that we are seeing.’
SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH - PROFESSOR PAUL THOMAS, DSTL
‘Zero-second integration is really important because rather than spending months or years developing a system which, by the time you’ve fielded the system, the threat has changed or gone away, you can just click together these pieces like Lego and they just work at deployment time so you can respond to a threat, to a new threat or to an emerging threat by integrating the pieces you need at the time you need them.’
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