Counter-UAS Exercise by NCI Agency

In a 10 day exercise led by the NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency, participants were able to test different drone defence systems under mission-like conditions. The live test event at the Lieutenant General Best Barracks in Vredepeel, The Netherlands, aimed to ensure that commercial systems from different NATO nations can work together to counter threats posed by drones.

The NCI Agency reported that some 70 systems were deployed during the exercise, including:

• sensors
• drone defence devices
• so-called “effectors”
• Command & Control systems
• sample drones to serve as “threats”

The aim of the exercise was to raise technical interoperability standards between commercial drone defence systems, while improving NATO’s ability to counter potential drone threats.

One system used during the exercise was the NCI agency’s ARTEMIS* prototype, which uses machine learning algorithms to detect and classify drones.

“ARTEMIS is a prototype system developed by the Agency’s technical centre of expertise for countering unmanned aerial systems,” said Major General Göksel Sevindik, the NCI Agency’s Chief of Staff.

“It is an important tool that helps the Agency understand the technology used in the market and identify areas where NATO would benefit from developing standards for UAS defence systems.”