At Eurosatory 2024, Safran Electronics & Defense has announced the launch of its Skyjacker counter-drone solution. Skyjacker is an effective response to the growing threat posed by drones in the battlespace and at sensitive installations. Skyjacker’s strength lies in its unique spoofing capability: it alters the trajectory of a drone to neutralize the threat it represents by simulating the GNSS signals ensuring guidance towards its target. Coupled with radar detection and optronic identification, Skyjacker can efficiently defeat isolated drones and drone swarms in land and naval environments.
Skyjacker replaces the hostile drone’s satellite guidance signals with modified signals designed to deceive the drone about its position in order to disrupt or interrupt its mission. Skyjacker is particularly well suited to countering saturation attacks, such as swarming drones. The system can also defeat isolated drones piloted remotely by an operator and deliver effects at ranges from 1 to 10 kilometers (over 6 miles).
Skyjacker’s modular design incorporates a C2 (command and control) unit to manage the entire system, as well as one or more spoofing transmitters. It can be coupled with a wide array of sensors, such as optronic sights, radars and radiofrequency detectors, and with lasers, communication jammers and other effectors. Skyjacker can be deployed as a mobile version or interconnected with existing surveillance and fire control systems on land vehicles or naval vessels.
To deliver an initial mobile version of Skyjacker, Safran Electronics & Defense teamed with Hologarde, which designed the Bassalt anti-drone system for the French Air and Space Force to protect major events (Paris Olympics Games, G7 summit, Bastille Day parade). Safran Electronics & Defense and Hologarde demonstrated Skyjacker’s effectiveness at the Coubertin LAD II exercise organized by the Air and Space Force’s Air Defense and Air Operations Command (CDAOA) at Air Base 107 in Vélizy-Villacoublay, near Paris, in March 2024.
“We’re now working to deploy Skyjacker as part of the counter-drone protection capability for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” says Alexandre Ziegler, Executive VP, Defense Global Business Unit of Safran Electronics & Defense. “Trials with the French Navy have also proved particularly conclusive, confirming Skyjacker’s suitability as a highly effective, cost-controlled protection solution for frontline vessels.”
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