A defence technology company founded in Washington and Israel has unveiled what it describes as the world’s first native counter swarm defence system, designed from the outset to engage large numbers of drones at once instead of picking off one target at a time, according to the company.
Skapion said the system has been designed by its founding architect, General (retired) Pini Yungman, who was the architect of Iron Dome and formerly general manager of Rafael’s air and missile defence division. It is built around what the company calls a native many-to-many architecture, allowing multiple interceptors to engage multiple targets at the same time.
The company said the mobile, fully kinetic system is designed to engage more than one hundred targets simultaneously with an interception rate above 97 per cent, at a significantly lower cost per interception than conventional air defence. A vertical launch arrangement gives 360 degree coverage, and the company said it is designed for deployment from ground, airborne and maritime platforms.
Ido Bar-On, co-founder and chief executive, said: “The next generation of threats cannot be defeated by simply stacking yesterday’s air-defense solutions. A swarm is not just a larger number of discrete drones. It changes the dynamics of the engagement, the number of simultaneous decisions, the speed at which they must be made and the economies of every interception. Native Counter-Swarm means designing the entire system from day one for simultaneous mass engagement.”
Most air defence systems were developed to engage single targets or small numbers of them, which creates capacity and cost constraints against simultaneous mass attack. Skapion cited the wars in Ukraine and Iran, where it said legacy air defence is being saturated by swarms built to exhaust the defender’s magazines and budgets.
A Shahed type one-way attack drone costs tens of thousands of dollars. The interceptors fired at it can cost hundreds of thousands or more, and the magazine on any launcher is finite, so an attacker who can generate enough cheap airframes wins on arithmetic even when every shot is defeated. Bringing the cost per interception down, and the number of simultaneous engagements up, is what several companies on both sides of the Atlantic are now chasing.
At the centre of the Skapion system is an AI command and control architecture that fuses data from the company’s own sensors or from third party systems, evaluates and prioritises threats, allocates interceptors and manages engagements in real time. The company said it can run with full end-to-end autonomy or with a single human operator in the loop, depending on customer policy, and that the open, sensor-agnostic design allows integration with existing command and control and other counter-drone systems.
Excellent. The principles seem correct finally . What remains is: does it work?
What is really interesting is There are two box’s that look like a new vertical launched C-UAS system spotted on Dauntless this week…
A lot of the CUAS systems need to be low ish tech so that there is a massive pile of reloads…..
At the same time these need to increase reach well beyond 30mm….
Yep, if they can be reloaded at sea.. which I imagine they will be as an anti drone drone is light and not a massive risk to reload. It will be a massive increase in capability over time to stay in the AO and manage low tec air threats…
It’s a funny world that we are now essentially strapping stuff on ships to manage the equivalent of a WW2 level and scale air threat.
In world war 2 we use to strap stuff on to ship decks to deal with the threat too.
No warships in WW2 by 1944 could go anywhere near a port without having extra 40mm bofors and 20mm oerlikons bolted on to every inch of available deck space.
Most drones are easily countered, they enjoyed a short lived success because we gave up countering slow moving propeller plane threats 70 years ago.
No they do not look like VLS to me.
The system deployed on T45 is probably one of these three
The Interceptor Systems Evaluated
Frankenburg Technologies (Partnered with Babcock): One of the primary low-cost, mass-producible C-UAS missile/drone interceptor designs targeted directly at Project TALON requirements.
Other High-TLA / C-UAS Candidates: Industry submissions for Project TALON also evaluated vertical-launch and containerised interceptors like the Anduril Roadrunner-M and Raytheon Coyote Block 2.
Both Frankenberg and Coyote use a 45 degree launcher rather than a VLS so is suspect the system on T45 is one of them. There are four apparent doors on the launcher. Is suspect they drop down revealing four tubes in each all pointing up at 45 degrees. Of the two candidate system my money is on Frankenberg as they have a contract with Babcock since January to develop this exact type of system. There has been no FMS through Congress that I’m aware of for the UK to get Coyote 2 which comes with its own radar mast as well.
I also have a hard time believing any US contractor could do a job this quickly in the UK or anywhere else without a several billion dollar carrot being dangled in front of them and even then it’s doubtful.
At what point will counter UAS drones move from self destructive attacks (making them single use) to firing something at the target drone (making them recoverable and reusable)? For instance, get close enough and fire a shotgun cartridge at it or equivalent. As soon as that happens, the cost picture changes completely. Plus, there will then be ‘Ace’ drones.
Unless they fall in your side you will be giving tech to the enemy to use against you. I suspect the cost and extra weight/complexity makes it not worthwhile.
SpaceX reuse might works for bigger missiles.
You mean the Ukrainian Varta Modular Shotgun Drones, widely deployed and used.
Drones and anti Drones reminds me of the Armour and anti Armour race but on steroids, I don’t think there is a real autonomous drone swarm system yet, meaning a group attacking a target making the life as hard as can be for the defenders, but it’s clearly the direction things are going
Drone swarms are a bad idea because they are easily countered by flak and flak is ridiculously cheap. They are also highly susceptible to EM weapons and jamming. I suspect this is what we haven’t seen them used.
Multiple independent drones attacking from different directions are much more dangerous.
Good points Jim, still IMO there will be swarm of Drones eventually, EW and counter EW are also evolving, countering EW wil make the Drones much more expensive but for high value targets it will payoff, I don’t think fiber optics Drones will ever be effective swarms
Engaging 100 targets simultaneously is a big jump from what the T45 was initially designed to do, which was 16. Though this technology is about 30 years newer, but the RN still advertise the T45 as being capable of engaging 16 targets simultaneously. I would fully expect with the continuous upgrades to the CMS, the ship would handle a lot more.
They haven’t said what type of interceptor they use, as this will have a massive significance on the interceptor vs target cost.
One problem with Aster is possible aerodynamic self interference. Note the smoke one firing does.
That’s why it’s being paired with CAMM. It’s not the smoke that’s the issue but the burning flames that stop any VLS equipped ship ripple firing missiles.
With cold gas launch CAMM is ideal for such scenarios of countering multiple targets approaching the ship.
While I know it’s not real life if you watch any of the Grimm reapers videos using both Sea power and DCS the T45 and T26 have a distinct advantage in countering other surface combatants missile salvos for this exact reason. The ESSM weapon carried by US and other NATO navy ships can’t do this nor can Aster 15.
T45 equipped with 48 Aster 30 block 1, 24 CAMM and possibly now 32 Frankenberg mk1 short ranged interceptors remains one of the worlds best equipped air defence destroyers, its only rival being the latest AEGIS equipped US, Japanese and South Korean destroyers which are better at intercepting ballistic missiles but not as capable at dealing with large swarms of sea skimming missiles or drones.
With two martlett armed wildcats the T45 is even more capable in the modern low level air warfare role as the US had no equivalent.
Another Grimm Reapers fan! Love to see it!
👍
T45’s computer systems will handle a lot more than that.
The issue is more about having enough effectors..
You can imagine the interceptor size by the launcher, each of the 4 boxes in the vehicle have 25 mini missiles, total 100.
I suspect each box has 4 so 16 per side. I’m Happy to be wrong on that 😀
I meant the Israeli system in the pcture,
In another article I have they have their own interceptor, planned price for mass orders is 10K per interceptor, rang 1 – 7 km
UK PAAMS in the Type 45’s may have a simultaneous limit of 16 (I have my doubts, I think its higher) but that’s not the only anti-drone system that the ship is equipped with, is it?
a president can override a defence system: star shield to let in more attacks why trust this one?