Over the last decade we have seen the evolution of drone warfare, both by nation states and malicious actors, exploiting drones of all sizes to threaten the safety of people and places. The rapid pace of change requires countermeasure systems that are flexible, modular and agile to overcome emerging threats.
Falcon Shield has a track record of protecting critical national infrastructure, high-profile events and our Armed Forces on operations. Operating on open standards means the system can integrate world-leading sensors and effectors to overcome the complex threats posed by Uncrewed Air Systems (UAS).
Early iterations of the system were in use as early as 2012, protecting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London, but it was from 2018 when the system saw more widespread use. Gatwick Airport was forced to halt all flights in December 2018, with Heathrow Airport suffering the same fate just a month later, due to reports of drone sightings. The disruption that commercial off-the-shelf drones could cause was realised, forcing governments and armed forces to react.
For the Royal Air Force (RAF), this meant investing in a UK military version of Falcon Shield, called ORCUS. Since then, it has seen numerous deployments – some of which have been made public, others that are still sensitive to this day. The Royal Canadian Air Force has also operated Falcon Shield since its acquisition in 2020.
Falcon Shield has detected, tracked, identified and defeated real uncrewed aerial threats, including small, low, slow and hard-to-detect systems on operations. The system has been shaped and refined through direct feedback from military operators in theatre thanks to Leonardo’s close working relationship with its customers, and we keep our finger on the pulse of any emerging threats or future trends that may affect the C-UAS landscape of the future.
Fundamentally, this is achieved thanks to Falcon Shield’s open standards – a foundation that enables the quick integration or federation of sensors and effectors to create an effective, layered system that is trusted by its operators. Integrated systems feed into Leonardo’s Command and Control (C2) system, fusing these data sources to provide a clear air picture, and presenting operators with clear information that prioritises the most potent targets heading their way.
The HYAS C2 system is fully compliant with the UK MOD’s SAPIENT standard, also adopted by NATO. SAPIENT stands for Sensing for Asset Protection with Integrated Electronic Networked Technology. It is an open standard that allows the fusion and integration of autonomous sensory information into a single integrated picture, enabling the best sensors and effectors to be used within the Falcon Shield ecosystem.
Highly deployable, Falcon Shield requires little maintenance, is deployable to a range of different environments and boasts high availability with a low operational burden.
In short, Leonardo’s customers trust that Falcon Shield can be deployed anywhere in the world whenever it is required. This is why the system has evolved into variants including fixed-site, containerised and a truly mobile variant that can be used on the move.
Almost all capabilities operate in a cycle of measures and countermeasures, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Counter-UAS environment. This is why Leonardo believes in a layered system of drone defence – one that detects targets through passive and active means, tracks and identifies them accurately, and does all of this at range to provide their operators with the most amount of time to act. This may be in the form of a ‘hard kill’ option – using a projectile, missile or laser weapon to physically shoot a target from the sky. But in more built-up areas where this is not appropriate, it may be a ‘soft kill’ option that uses cyber or electromagnetic effects to stop a drone in its path or return it to its owner.