MSPO 2026 –  Indra’s NEMUS radar covers all speeds

At Kielce, Indra is presenting NEMUS, an AESA radar designed for one of the defining challenges facing land forces: detecting both a slow-moving micro-drone and a high-speed anti-tank round. Now selected for integration with Rheinmetall’s StrikeShield active protection system, the Spanish sensor arrives at MSPO with growing technical maturity and an increasingly credible industrial base

On the modern battlefield, armoured vehicles must look in every direction and, increasingly, at every speed. A nano-UAV may fly low and slow, almost unnoticed, while a rocket, anti-tank guided missile or kinetic penetrator may leave the vehicle only fractions of a second to detect, assess and react.

It is this coexistence of radically different threats that Indra addresses with its NEMUS radar, being showcased at MSPO in Kielce, Poland. Compact, lightweight and based on Active Electronically Scanned Array technology, or AESA, NEMUS is intended for counter-UAS missions, tactical surveillance and the active protection of armoured vehicles.

One radar, two threat sets

NEMUS is designed to process, within the same detection architecture, targets with very different signatures and flight profiles. At one end are small drones, micro-UAVs and nano-UAVs; at the other are some of the fastest threats relevant to land-platform protection, including RPG rounds, anti-tank missiles and kinetic APFSDS ammunition.

According to the published specifications for NEMUS, the system is one of the few radar systems worldwide that has demonstrated the ability to address, with the same hardware, threats at both ends of the speed spectrum: from hypersonic-class projectiles above Mach 5, such as kinetic energy ammunition, to very slow targets such as multirotor drones flying at around 10 m/s.

NEMUS is therefore neither purely an anti-drone radar nor merely a sensor for an active protection system. It is positioned at the intersection of several operational missions:

• Counter-UAS surveillance and detection of drones of various sizes.

• Active protection of main battle tanks and other armoured platforms.

• Tactical reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition.

• Support for very-short-range air-defence architectures.

Provision of a local situational-awareness picture to command-and-control or countermeasure systems.

In simple terms, NEMUS is intended to be the armoured vehicles electronic sentry – watching for both the mosquito and the arrow.

Compact format, full coverage

One of NEMUS’s principal operational advantages is its small physical footprint. A single radar panel measures 295 mm in height, 405 mm in width and 305 mm in depth, making it suitable for integration on turret surfaces, vehicle flanks or other exposed areas of a land platform.

Four panels can create a bubble of 360-degree surveillance ring around the vehicle, while a fifth can be fitted to increase the protection against top-attack threats.

The system can track more than dozens of targets simultaneously per radar panel. It uses a fully digital architecture, including digital beamforming and high-speed data processing. These characteristics are central to separating genuine tracks from clutter, prioritising threats and passing usable target information to a fire-control or countermeasure system.

The design also targets platforms operating under harsh mechanical and environmental conditions. NEMUS Compact is listed as complying with STANAG 4569 Level 1 ballistic protection and IP68/MIL-STD-810G environmental requirements. Indra also highlights resistance to electromagnetically contested conditions, including attempts at jamming.

From Leopard to StrikeShield

NEMUS passed a notable milestone in May 2025, when Indra tested the radar on Spanish Army Leopard tanks at the Armoured Units Training Centre in Zaragoza. The trials were intended to validate the sensor’s integration on the platform and its ability to detect, identify and track drones as well as anti-tank threats.

Indra says the radar incorporates intelligent algorithms to remove false targets and preserve performance in the presence of electronic countermeasures. In an active-protection context, the speed of the overall chain – detection, classification, trajectory calculation, warning and possible engagement – matters as much as detection range. The vehicle must receive information reliable enough to avoid an unnecessary interception, but early enough to protect the crew.

The programme gained further momentum in June 2026, when Indra and Rheinmetall signed an agreement to integrate NEMUS into the architecture of the StrikeShield active protection system. In this division of labour, the radar performs threat detection and tracking, while StrikeShield handles fire-control calculations, countermeasure selection and, where required, the execution of a hard-kill response.

For both Rheinmetall and Indra, the arrangement broadens the range of threats that can be detected by the active-protection system while supporting a modular architecture adaptable to different platforms, from infantry fighting vehicles to heavy main battle tanks.

European industrial momentum

The MSPO presentation comes as Indra moves NEMUS from technology demonstrator towards serial industrial production. In Córdoba, at the Las Quemadas site, the company has committed € 56 million to expand industrial capacity for civil and military radar production. The automated production line is intended to manufacture more than 100 NEMUS radars in 2026, alongside other radar families including the S3T space-surveillance system, the Lanza LTR-25 and the MRT multifunction tactical radar.

This industrial ramp-up is strategically significant. The market for active-protection systems and counter-drone solutions is now being driven by urgent requirements for volume production, technological sovereignty and rapid integration across existing vehicle fleets. A high-performing radar that cannot be produced at scale would only partly meet that demand; a serial production capability gives NEMUS a different level of credibility with European armed forces and systems integrators.

Indra is also positioning the radar within several European initiatives connected to armoured vehicles and platform survivability, including FAMOUS and MARTE. The group is further involved in several EDA and NATO working groups focused on advanced active-protection capabilities for next-generation platforms.

At MSPO, NEMUS is therefore more than a new radar on display. It reflects a broader shift in European land defence: at a time when an armoured vehicle must withstand an inexpensive drone as readily as a sophisticated missile, the real advantage is no longer simply having a powerful sensor – it is having one agile enough to see both coming.

Photos by J. Roukoz