Euronaval 2024 – A Skysphere against drones from Diehl Defence
Working in close cooperation with Skysec, a Swiss company based in Turbenthal, canton Zürich, Diehl Defence is developing a military C-UAS hard-kill system named Skysphere
While in the past at teach defence exhibition we could see new developments in the UAS field, now that UASs are a well-established presence on today battlefields, not only as reconnaissance and surveillance assets but mostly as lethal systems capable to attack defensive positions from the top, it is now the turn of C-UAS systems to be developed in numbers.
One new system, currently under development by Diehl Defence, was showcased at Euronaval 2024. Until now the company based in Überlingen, on the German coast of the Lake of Konstanz, mostly relied on High Power Electro-Magnetic (HPEM) systems to neutralise enemy drones. The increasing UAS threat requires a layered defence, therefore Diehl Defence started working with Skysec to add a longer layer solution to its HPEM assets.
The Swiss company developed a non-lethal system in the form of a UAV capable to catch an incoming enemy UAV with a net and land together safely using a parachute. Known as Sentinel Catch, it comes in the form of a mini-missile with a pulling five-blade propeller activated by an electric motor, a cylindrical fuselage with four delta wings, and a cylindrical cone at the back, containing the net. The Sentinel Catch is launched when a sensor raises the alarm and provides a generic 3D position of the incoming threat; a sensor in the nose of the effector provides terminal guidance, the Sentinel Catch spreading the net and overflying the target, which becomes entangled in the trap, the parachute being then deployed for recovery. The system has a range of 5 km, can reach up to 65 m/s, is 700 mm long and has a mass of 1.8 kg.
Proposed for airport security and other civil, law enforcement and homeland protection duties, the Sentinel Catch is the starting point for the Skysphere, which is aimed at the military market being a hard-kill system.
The new system developed in cooperation by the two companies, which are separated by only 50 km, maintains the same architecture; it is now fitted with a radar seeker in the nose, and the net/parachute assembly at the rear is replaced by a 500 grams high-explosive/fragmentation warhead that, according to Diehl Defence representatives, is able to kill more than a single Class 1 drone in case of a swarm attack with drones at short distance from each other. No more details were provided on the warhead.
Another difference is the presence of a data-link; this is mostly used for communications between Skysphere missiles, allowing the system to react in a swarm-against-swarm operation, with the defensive assets coordinating their action between them to maximise effectiveness. This should require strong artificial intelligence-based algorithms, the company not commenting on this point. The attack is carried out head-to-head with the target, the warhead being detonated at the optimal distance, flight endurance being 3-4 minutes with a maximum speed well over 200 km and the same range of the original Skysec product. The first flight tests were carried out, the missile taking off from the hand. The Skysphere is being optimised for canister launch, in order to provide customers with multiple-canister configurations. EDR On-Line understood that Diehl Defence and Skysec are testing different materials, from metal to foam, in order to make the Skysphere as easy as possible to produce, even at field level, being capable to produce high quantities of such type of effector at limited cost being a must, as shown in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Skysphere should be ready in around two years’ time, the Swiss military backing the programme.
Photos by P. Valpolini at Euronaval 2024
