Eric Marceau is Vice President Strategy & Marketing of Surface Radars at the French defense company Thales. Militär Aktuell spoke to him about the difficulty of detecting drones, lessons learned from the war in Ukraine and the planned procurement of new radars by the army.
Mr. Marceau, what is the biggest challenge facing radar designers and manufacturers today?
Over the past five years or so, we have of course seen the rise of drones (-> The Ukraine war as the first “War of Drones”). They are clearly a new challenge, they are slow and small, with a low signature. We have therefore invested heavily in new technologies and now, with the help of artificial intelligence-based algorithms, we are able to better detect drones and thus cover a wider range of threats at lower altitudes.
Is AI the key tool for this? Can signatures be better filtered out with the help of machine learning?
Yes, of course. AI is a great help when it comes to identification and classification. For example, it is difficult to distinguish small drones from birds. They are similar in size, similar in speed and in many cases they behave very similarly. Just like birds, smaller drones can also change their flight direction in seconds. However, it is important to work out the differences from the really huge amounts of data that we obtain during field operations so that the signal processing “learns” these differences and can draw conclusions from them. In these recurring but similar processes, AI is a very useful and capable aid. https://militaeraktuell.at/bundesheer-kauft-sikorsky-uh-60m-black-hawk/
Has the increasing threat from drones pushed the classic targets for air defense radars into the background?
The main threats in our segment continue to be advanced stealth fighters, jammers, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. But we have known and “dealt with” these for a long time. You previously asked about the latest challenge – and that is the detection of slow targets that are getting smaller and smaller and that are also moving in an active environment in which trees or wind farms also create “clutter” in the system. Our aim is to develop ever more intelligent radar solutions against this background in order to meet the needs of our customers.
As a “radar man”, what lessons have you learned from the war in Ukraine?
We can draw on current experience with our systems from there and, once again, it is the drone topic mentioned that concerns us the most. With regard to artillery systems, the topic of “battery return fire” is also of great importance there. Although this has also been an issue in the past ten years, it has now become significantly more important as an active and passive challenge. In addition, the war in Ukraine has accelerated developments that began several years ago – before the full-scale war began. I’m talking about the increased defense budgets in most countries, for example, but also the increased procurement requirements and their impact on us. https://militaeraktuell.at/russland-us-drohnen-ueber-schwarzem-meer-stoeren/
Does your company have to increase production for this?
Of course. We used to produce around one of our Ground Master 200 and 400 per month, but now we produce twice as many – two per month or 24 per year. And it could possibly even become 30, together with our second production facility in Hengelo in the Netherlands.
To what extent does Thales also have Austria on its radar with its systems? The Austrian Armed Forces are about to procure a successor to their Flamingo ZZR system from the former Thompson-CSF.
80 percent of our production is exported. So far, we have delivered around 250 GM series devices to 32 countries, with 15 of them operating GM-200s. As far as Austria is concerned, we know that they are exploring the market again. And yes, we could cover the demand with multiple solutions.
