Spanish Defence Ministry selects AUDS system to detect, track, identify, and neutralize unmanned threats

CAMBRIDGE, England. Spanish Defence Ministry (Ministerio de Defensa) officials have selected the AUDS counter-UAV system from Blighter Surveillance Systems in Cambridge, England, to protect critical assets and personnel from threats posed by malicious unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), also called drones. The contract award is estimated to be worth roughly 2 million euros.

The AUDS system can detect, track, identify, and defeat a drone in approximately 15 seconds at a range of up to 10 kilometers (km) or six miles. AUDS detects a drone using the electronic scanning micro-Doppler radar, tracks it using precision infrared and daylight cameras and advanced video tracking software before using a non-kinetic radio-frequency (RF) inhibitor to defeat the drone.

Using AUDS, the operator can effectively take control of a drone and force a safe landing. The AUDS system is military grade, designed and proven to operate in harsh environments. It works in all weather, day or night, and the disruption is flexible, proportional, and operator controlled.

The AUDS team has now carried out 1,500+ drone sorties and been tested against 60+ types of drone including fixed-wing and quadcopter aircraft.

AUDS is positioned at the strategic end of the UAS countermeasures market for use by government agencies, the police and military to protect high value critical national infrastructure and personnel or strategically important sites/events, including nuclear power stations, borders, political, sporting or VIP events, airports and airbases.

The AUDS mission-deployed, integrated, military-grade, counter-UAS system was selected by the Spanish Defence Ministry after careful market research and extensive field trials, officials say. The AUDS detect-track-identify-defeat counter-drone system was developed in 2015 by a consortium of U.K. defense companies, including Blighter Surveillance Systems, Chess Dynamics, and Enterprise Control Systems.

“We are delighted to have secured yet another sale of our strategic counter-UAV system. This contract with the Spanish military follows the successful mission deployment of multiple AUDS systems by United States’ forces in 2016,” says Mark Radford, CEO, Blighter Surveillance Systems. “AUDS is fully developed so we have been able to meet the Spanish Defence Ministry’s rapid delivery timescale. The systems were shipped in late May 2017 for immediate deployment following operator training.”

Blighter Surveillance Systems Ltd is an independent electronic-scanning radar and sensor solution provider. It delivers an integrated multi-sensor package to systems integrators comprising the Blighter e-scan radars, cameras, thermal imagers, trackers and software solutions. Blighter radars combine patented solid-state Passive Electronically Scanned Array (PESA) technology - utilising digital beamforming (DBF) on transmit and receive - with advanced Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) and Doppler processing to provide a robust and persistent surveillance capability and an unmatched combination of high reliability, accuracy and performance with a low cost of ownership. Products are manufactured under a BS EN ISO 9001:2008 certified management system. Blighter Surveillance Systems Ltd is based at Great Chesterford on the outskirts of Cambridge, England.

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