During the Paris Airshow, Thales and Skydweller signed an MoU for an alliance to develop a new surveillance solution for the Aerospace, Security and Defence (ASD) needs. What’s most exciting about this alliance is the aircraft that will be used to conduct the aerial surveillance – an unmanned solar powered aircraft, a medium-altitude pseudo-satellite (MAPS).
Global Airspace Radar had the opportunity to discuss this new endeavour with Marie Gayrel, Vice-President in charge of the Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance activities, Thales and Sébastien Renouard, Chief Commercial Officer of Europe, Middle East, Asia & Africa, Skydweller.
Skydweller takes flight
Let’s begin by digging a little deeper into the Skydweller aircraft, an autonomous aircraft that can carry a payload of up to 400kg running on solar power, think of this as a cross between a pseudo-satellite and an UAV. Let’s call it a drone.
Something that’s really different here is the payload it can carry vs other solar-powered solutions. It can fly for up to 90 days at a time reinforcing their value proposition of reduced cost, increased sustainability and increased pilot safety as it is controlled remotely. Additionally, it can easily stay in a holding pattern over an area of interest for longer surveillance. The solution fills the gap between space-based satellites and ground radar. Combined with the Thales sensors, the outcome is a 1+1=3 solution.
Today, the company has one prototype currently at TRL 8, almost TRL 9. They have been doing demonstrations for the US government in the Gulf of Mexico to provide surveillance of illegal immigration and drug trafficking by sea. Their EU base with be live in the Canary Islands, Spain this fall to support building of additional aircraft in early 2026 for launch later that year.
Thales ups the surveillance outcome with AI
Thales will equip the aircraft with it’s AirMaster S radar system. This is a mature product that is already in use for France’s defence maritime patrol. What’s really interesting is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in this solution. The AI provides auto-tuning capabilities based on flight and mission conditions. This can include the goal of the specific mission, weather conditions, and geographic location. The AI adaptation can be programmed in advance for the AI to take full control or with a human in the centre for final decision making. Thales has a large in-house team of AI experts and will continue to evolve the capabilities in this area over time.
Targets can be tracked on the ground, in the air or at sea. There is a continuous, 360 ° view up to 200 nautical miles away. As you can imagine, large amounts of data will be collected in this scenario. The AI is able to analyse and prioritise what data is important and needs to be transmitted to the team on the ground for review. In order to achieve this goal, the AI must be trained. This would ideally be done with existing data from a customer, but if this is not available generic date from Thales can be used as a starting point.
Target use cases
From a geographic perspective, the focus of the partnership is NATO, the EU and the US. More specifically, Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in applicable countries. An EEZ is a maritime area extending up to 200 nautical miles from a coastal state’s baseline, where the state has specific sovereign rights over the exploration, exploitation, conservation, and management of marine resources1.
The demonstrations mentioned above are focused on maritime solutions, but there is also an opportunity related to wildfires. When a Skydweller aircraft is equipped with radar and an infared camera, fire fighters can gain a leg up in fighting fires. They can do night and day mapping of fire movements, check for restart activity, anticipate the path of fires, and help to locate fireman who are in a remote areas fighting a fire.
Integration with Air Traffic Control activities
The Skydweller aircraft flies at 45,000 feet or in the same airspace as commercial aircraft. To date they have flown more than 1,500 hours in more than 28 different airspaces. They carry a transponder to communicate with ATC staff. Today the airspace is closed for their take-off and landing, which is normally happening between three and six AM. Take-off can occur from any type of runway. With a 72 metre wingspan, it takes a few hundred metres to take flight. At this point it will take about eight hours to reach cruising altitude. This might sound daunting, but in the words of Sébastien Renouard, “they are big and slow and easy to avoid.”
With both EASA and EUROCONTROL involved in trials to date, the focus for the future will mainly be regional airports. Two locations of note are Stennis International Airport in Mississippi, closely located to NASA’s Stennis Space Center and the Fuerteventura Technology Park in the Canary Islands, which has been purpose-built to support drones and stratospheric flight.
Next steps
Demonstrations with Thales will be ready to begin within the next 12 months. This might sound like an odd combination of technologies and maybe it’s not the perfect solution. “This fills a gap to reuse radar sensors to increase the sharing of data and overall resilience. This is something complementary to existing solutions,” shared Marie Gayrel.
What’s my take-away? I’m always intrigued by new technology and ways to combine existing technology to solve a new problem. As a result I wanted to find out more about this partnership. I’m still intrigued and looking forward to tracking how this solution progresses. I believe there could be many additional opportunities in the future to be able to track autonomous flying aircraft, protect critical infrastructure, locate lost watercraft, hikers and maybe even track the migration of animals. Just my two cents, dreaming up new solutions….
1 https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part5.htm
