Naval Group, Icarus Swarms Sign MoU to Develop Drone Swarm Solutions for Navies

Naval Group signed a memorandum of understanding with start-up Icarus Swarms, part of Dronisos, to develop drone swarm solutions for navies.

Drone swarms or robot swarms represent both a threat and an opportunity for existing fleets. Drone swarms, whether airborne, surface or underwater, are resilient, saturating and elusive. They thus make it possible to carry out new forms of missions that are complementary to conventional vectors. Navy missions can therefore be impacted by these new technologies.

Dronisos, a French start-up, is capable of simultaneously deploying five hundred to one thousand aerial drones that act in concert using artificial intelligence. Dronisos now offers Icarus Swarms kits, mini swarms of drones dedicated to specific security missions: lighting, radio jamming, anti-drone system testing, radiological mapping or people or equipment research.

Naval Group and Icarus Swarms have already carried out simulated attacks of ten to one hundred drones to test systems for detecting asymmetric threats using Dronisos' Certifence product.

In a prospective approach similar to the one of the Red Team1 , Naval Group imagines the use cases and new threats of tomorrow. These swarms of intelligent drones could, for example, be deployed underwater and in the air to protect the diving and surfacing of a submarine from detection.

These new applications will be developed and tested, in particular in New Aquitaine, at the Naval Group site in Angoulême-Ruelle as well as at the Dronisos offices in Bordeaux.

The Angoulême-Ruelle site specializes in the design, manufacture, testing and maintenance of a wide range of equipment for the surface and submarine vessels of its navy customers.

The Innov'Factory, Naval Group's 4700m2 building based in Ruelle sur Touvre, dedicated to innovation and development, will welcome the project team in the coming months to continue the exchanges and explore future joint developments.