Selex ES Announces Falcon Shield Counter-UAV System

By Mike Ball / 16 Sep 2015
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Selex ES Falcon ShieldSelex ES, an aerospace and defense technology firm, has unveiled its new Counter-Unmanned Air Vehicle (C-UAV) system, named Falcon Shield. Falcon Shield provides users with a multi-spectral threat sensing capability and, through the integration of an electronic attack capability, a multi-layered threat response. This response introduces a capability to take control of a remotely-piloted drone and land it safely (a command-link control intervention capability) prior to the need to defeat the threat by simple jamming or kinetic solutions. Consequently, the potential for undesired collateral effects is greatly minimised. Falcon Shield is derived from Selex ES’s heritage associated with the provision of short-range defence solutions against a variety of airborne threats.

The rapid proliferation of micro/mini UAVs has been recognised globally as a growing potential threat to national and commercial security. Falcon Shield addresses this threat by providing users with a rapidly deployable, scalable and modular system to find, fix, track, identify and defeat the potential threat.

Falcon Shield makes use of Selex ES’s high-performance, passive electro-optical and electronic surveillance sensors, combined with scenario specific radar. These provide a fully integrated threat detection, identification and tracking capability which enables Falcon Shield to operate in environments that range from wide area through to high-clutter, ‘urban canyons’.

Incorporated within the Falcon Shield system is Selex ES’s unique electronic attack capability that provides users with the ability to disrupt or take control of the threat. Because Falcon Shield is inherently flexible, this electronic attack capability can be complemented by the integration of additional kinetic effectors.

Ease of use, resulting in low user fatigue and reduced user training needs, is provided through use of the Selex ES Vantage Command, Control & Situation Awareness (C2SA) framework. This delivers an intuitive user interface and automated threat detection & tracking functions, including automated handover between detection and identification sensors.

The flexibility of the Vantage C2SA framework also enables the Falcon Shield system to be readily tailored and interfaced with existing customer specific security solutions as well as the customer’s security infra-structure.

Posted by Mike Ball Mike Ball is our resident technical editor here at Unmanned Systems Technology. Combining his passion for teaching, advanced engineering and all things unmanned, Mike keeps a watchful eye over everything related to the unmanned technical sector. With over 10 years’ experience in the unmanned field and a degree in engineering, Mike’s been heading up our technical team here for the last 8 years. Connect & Contact