The Team Pellonia partnership, comprising Leonardo UK, Thales UK and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), has completed 100% successful live-fire trials with a new laser-based airborne self-protection system, the MoD announced on 20 October 2024.
During recent trials at the Vidsel Test Range in Sweden, the operational system, which does not yet appear to have a name, defeated a range of infrared heat-seeking missiles being fired simultaneously.
The system works by Thales’s Elix-IR threat warning system quickly detecting and identifying the launch of missiles, using a series of algorithms to filter out background clutter so that only valid threats are tracked, classified and declared.
Once any threats have been classified, an alert is sent to Leonardo’s Miysis directed infrared countermeasure (DIRCM) system, which moves to track the incoming missiles and precisely directs a jamming laser onto them.
According to the UK MoD, this UK-engineered capability offers “latest-generation, best-in-class protection whilst enjoying full operational independence and offering the same freedoms to export customers”.
The system is slated to protect a range of Royal Air Force aircraft, including the intelligence-gathering Shadow R2 platform and the A400M transport aircraft.
“The UK defensive aids system is the culmination of MoD’s detailed understanding of changing threats alongside years of sustained defence investment in science and technology nurtured within Dstl,” the laboratory’s chief for air survivability, Mark Elson, was quoted as saying in an MoD press release. “This has been aligned with the development capabilities of our commercial partners through Team Pellonia.
“The design of the system has the agility to protect platforms now and into the future, providing long-term operational advantage to the UK and our allies,” Elson added. “This is enabled through spiral development, which provides capabilities such as the Dstl-developed jamming waveform that defeats the guidance of the missile threat.”
Leonardo’s senior vice-president of radar and advanced targeting, Mark Stead, was quoted as saying, “The results of these latest trials speak for themselves, and are a testament to the skills and experience within Leonardo as a global leader in directed infrared countermeasures. Miysis DIRCM has again proven itself as a reliable, effective protection system and is flying operationally on many platforms today.”
Thales UK’s managing director of optronics and missile electronics, Stephen McCann, stated, “Elix-IR has proved its world-leading capabilities as the latest-generation, multi-function infrared threat warning system during what was a comprehensive and complicated multi-faceted trial,” adding that the UK MoD “has adopted Elix-IR as its core reference capability threat warner of choice, based on its maturity and proven capability.”
