FI 2024: MBDA Demonstrates New "Sky Guardian" Effectors Concept
This week at the Farnborough International Airshow, MBDA showcased a new effector concept for its modular and scalable Sky Warden Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) technology.
The ground-launched air defense munitions are designed to target threats including small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) of Level 1 and smaller Level 2, as well as loitering munitions. The concept integrates Fortem Technologies' DroneHunter® technology, enabling the rapid attachment of warheads to drones.
MBDA reported successful tests and demonstrations of this system. In recent customer demonstrations, Sky Warden successfully neutralized a range of attack drones with varying kinetic characteristics in real-world operational environments.
Sky Warden uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist operators in identifying and classifying threats detected by its full suite of sensors, including radar, passive RF, and electro-optical cameras. The system automatically assigns threats to the most appropriate available effectors.
In one scenario, MBDA demonstrated how Sky Warden used jammers to block attacking drones, Hunter drones to capture them, lasers to quickly destroy them, and Mistral 3 missiles to take out a "Shahed-like" drone at long range.