• On October 16, 2024, during the first flight tests of its kind, Thales demonstrated the potential of deploying swarms of drones with different levels of autonomy. Autonomous features powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent agents reduce the cognitive load on operators while ensuring they remain in control at all times, especially during critical mission phases.
• In this last stage of his Drone War strategically, Thales and its partners apply the principles of interoperability and integration to improve the coordination of swarms of drones intended to be deployed on a wide range of mission types.
• To meet the needs of the armed forces, Thales offers an innovative AI-based system architecture that provides drone swarms with an unprecedented level of supervised autonomy and allows them to adapt their behavior to changing operational requirements.

The operational value of drones on the battlefield is now firmly established, but their effectiveness is still limited by two factors: they generally require one operator per drone, and a secure and resilient data link must be available throughout the mission . The flight tests organized for the JDEC demonstrations (1) on October 16, 2024 highlighted the latest advances by Thales and its partners to overcome these limitations and support drone swarm operations adapted to military needs. During testing, Thales’ COHESION demonstrator showed how AI and intelligent agents can be used to achieve an unprecedented level of autonomy in drone swarm deployments.

The system architecture of the COHESION demonstrator allows operators to adapt the level of autonomy of their drone swarms to the operational requirements of each phase of the mission. This new capability provides an unprecedented level of flexibility in contested environments, where electronic warfare measures can overwhelm communications systems and jam data links relying on GNSS signals. Autonomous operation of single drones and/or entire swarms eliminates the need for a permanent data link to the control station. Drones are capable of perceiving and analyzing their local environment, sharing target information, analyzing enemy intentions and prioritizing missions. They can also use collaborative tactics and optimize their trajectories to increase resilience and enhance force effectiveness, helping to accelerate the OODA(2) loop and improve battlefield transparency.

This innovative approach acts as a force multiplier without increasing the cognitive load of operators, who remain in control of the most critical decisions. Using trusted, cyber-secure, human-in-the-loop AI ensures safe human supervision at all times, in line with Thales’ TrUE AI principles (3).

“We are proud to develop innovative solutions aligned with strong ethical values. Our solutions are demonstrable, applicable, incremental and deployable, acting as a force multiplier without increasing the cognitive load of operators, while ensuring that they maintain their central role in the decision. -manufacturing process.” Hervé Dammann, Deputy General Manager Land and Air Systems, Thales

Positioned as a supplier and systems integrator, Thales has developed its Drone Warfare offering to accelerate interoperability between a wide range of land, airland, air and naval platforms. The Group is also a key player in an ecosystem of French industries and technology companies working to develop the capabilities of front-line drones in the theater of operations.

• In June 2023, Thales unveiled OpenDRobotics, a revolutionary AI-based solution that connects robotic technologies and different types of unmanned aerial and ground assets to build complete mission systems with human intervention.
• Thales is also a recognized manufacturer of unmanned aerial systems: its Spy’Ranger 330 system was, for example, selected for the French army’s SMDR (4) program.
• The acquisition of Aeromapper by Thales in 2024 expands its range of drone products with the ALLATIS prowling ammunition.

In March 2024, Thales created cortAIx to accelerate the development of reliable AI for critical systems. Among its short-term objectives, cortAIx aims to integrate and industrialize AI development tools to enable the armed forces to optimize the analysis of data generated by sensors and decision support solutions while responding to specific requirements for cybersecurity, integrability and frugality of systems operating in constrained environments. .

¹ JDEC: Contact Drone Swarm Demonstration Day / Front-line drone swarm demonstrations

² OODA: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act

³ TrUE AI: transparent, understandable and ethical AI

⁴ SMDR: Mini-drone system for reconnaissance missions