DEFEA 2025 – Delian Alliance Industries, defending the Greek approaches and not only
Based in Athens and London, Delian Alliance Industries was formed in 2021 and is supported by major private investors, its mission being “to protect the West and its allies in an era of autonomous warfare.” Initially focused mainly on surveillance systems, at DEFEA 2025 Delian AI exhibited some effectors that are still under development but should join soon the company portfolio
Until now Delian AI has been mostly active in the autonomous surveillance domain, its deployable surveillance systems being deployed in Greece both by the military, for coastal surveillance, as well as by Civil Protection, for early fire detection.
An example of such tower was taking the centre stage at the Delian AI stand, fitted with an optronic head with day and thermal cameras, both with optical zoom, mounted on a pan and tilt platform, an Aerostar HiPointer 150 solid state surface radar, and a set of AESA radars ensuring 3D surveillance. While all these systems can be provided by third parties, Delian AI provides the “brain” of the system, the hardened computer with AI algorithms, IP69 protected, which performs data fusion exploiting data coming from all sensors, detects the required targets, tracks and geolocate them, passing relevant data to the control centre that will launch the mission. Such systems are already in use in Greece installed also on remote islands, batteries providing power, communications being redundant thanks to a Starlink satellite connection and to two different SIM cards. A system based on the same computer, exploiting military sensors, is being developed for forward observers, aimed at shortening the kill chain.
Among the new effectors, the first one was of the soft-kill type. The M4K15 is a portable ESM/ECM (electronic support measures/electronic counter measures) which works on batteries and can therefore be easily deployed and left on the ground, the system being considered a low cost, attritable item. Based on open software application programming interface. The same device can be switched from one use to the other simply by a software command. When used as an ESM it works as a detector and direction finder in the 400 MHz – 6 GHz frequency interval, which includes enemy UAVs and UGVs control and telemetry communications, while it can also identify the incoming threat thanks to its radiofrequency signature. In the same range of frequencies, it can operate in the ECM mode as a jammer, disturbing drone comms in the 2G to 5G bands as well as GNSS signals. The basic version has a range of 3 to 5 km, Currently at TRL 7, the M4K15 will be available in late 2025.
The two other projects under development at Delian AI were hard-kill solutions, one coming from the air and the second from the sea. Both named Interceptigon, to which a letter is added, A for Air and N for Naval, they are intended to be deployed hidden either under the terrain or on the seabed, to be released only at the right time, when a threat will appear. “We built the Interceptigon series to reflect the realities of asymmetric warfare, where cost-effective, autonomous systems can deliver strategic effects disproportionate to their size and price. We are not in the business of building traditional weapons,” said company CEO, Dimitrios Kottas. “We’re building autonomous denial systems for sovereign nations defending their territorial integrity or exclusive economic zones (EEZ) that don’t have the luxury of strategic depth or time. Interceptigon is about readiness, resilience, and sovereignty.” Delian AI did not provide detailed information, especially in terms of dimensions, as both systems are still under development and the final configuration is not yet frozen, systems being considered at TRL 6.
Starting from the Interceptigon A, it comes in the form of a quite conventional airframe, with an aerodynamic fuselage, mid straight wings, and a rear “V” empennage. At first glance its wingspan is slightly over 1 metre, the airframe being around 1 metre long. No indication of take-off mass was provided, the payload being 371 grams, which allows to carry a 40 mm grenade warhead. As said, once a threat is identified, the remote-control station will send a radio signal that will activate the underground canister; the lid will open, and the two munitions will be launched.
The Interceptigon A has a two-stage propulsion; first, a rocket motor expels the munition from the canister, then the electric motor is activated and opens the two propeller blades, which are folded backwards when the system is in the canister. The Delian AI munition has a range of 40 km and a cruising speed of 100 km. It is fitted with the OSIRIS, a low-cost GPS-denied navigation solution developed in-house; image-based, it compares the video feed provided by on-board cameras with satellite maps, ensuring accurate navigation, less than 0.1% navigation error in heavily EW contested scenarios, in a totally passive way, as no radiofrequency signals ere emitted. As for lethality, the small warhead needs to hit the right spot to be effective; thanks to artificial intelligence algorithms the Interceptigon A is able to identify soft spots of know targets, for example sensible components of a ship such as electro-optic devices or antennas, as it is often sufficient to “blind” a platform to make it operationally irrelevant. Of course, the Interceptigon A was developed considering from the start swarming operations, which can be carried out against surface targets, either on land or at sea.
The Interceptigon N has the look of a small jet-ski, powered by a waterjet that allows it to reach a cruising speed of over 40 knots with a range of over 16 NM. The suicide naval asset has a stealth shape, to make it the most difficult possible to detect once it is surfaced. The Interceptigon N is hosted in a cylinder that is deployed on the seabed. The control centre communicates with the cylinder, providing mission details and sending the activation command. Delian AI did not detail the communication system, which is definitely one of the most critical parts of the project. According to the company the suicide boat can remain hidden for months, waiting for orders.
When released, it climbs to the surface, its engine is powered on, and it starts sailing towards the intended target. Considering typical naval targets dimensions, the Interceptigon N is much bigger than its air counterpart and carries a 70 kg warhead; looking at the mock-up it seems that some form of protection is adopted to increase the Interceptigon N survivability against small arms projectiles, but this was not confirmed and might evolve during the final development phase. The system is optimised to neutralise naval assets in transit in sea choke points or in the initial phases of an amphibious operation.
This indicates how much the Inceptigon concept was designed to protect the Greek archipelago, however the concept can be applied to many other cases where country approaches are threatened by a potential stronger enemy.
Photos by P. Valpolini
