{"id":4729,"date":"2025-03-26T15:28:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T14:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/https-brigatafolgore-net-droni-autonomia-difesa-20250326\/"},"modified":"2025-04-06T06:59:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T05:59:33","slug":"airbus-presenta-il-drone-europeo-dotato-di-missili-per-la-difesa-aerea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/airbus-presents-european-drone-equipped-with-missiles-for-air-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"Airbus presents European drone equipped with missiles for air defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Airbus unveiled the new European drone<\/strong>based on a small aircraft without a pilot<\/strong> used for training over 20 years ago<\/strong>. LOAD<\/strong> (Low-Cost Air Defence<\/em>) is the new 'anti-drone drone'<\/strong> designed to tackle one of the key challenges of modern air defence<\/strong>: reduce interception costs<\/strong> by low-priced drones<\/strong> with traditional high-cost systems<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The drone design was announced on 26 March during a trade fair dedicated to unmanned systems in Bonn, Germany. The design is based on the Do-DT25<\/strong>a platform developed in the early 2000s and used as a aerial target for shooting practice<\/strong>. For this very reason, it was designed to be \"cheap and expendable<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reusable and armed with guided missiles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The new military UAV anti-drone drone<\/strong> developed by Airbus<\/strong> will be able to carry up to three guided missiles<\/strong>with a operating radius of 100 km<\/strong>. The launch will take place via catapult<\/strong>and at the end of the mission the aircraft will return to base landing by parachute<\/strong>ready for a new operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A prototype with two missiles<\/strong> should fly by the end of the year<\/strong>while the final version is expected for 2027<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although no specific technical details were provided for LOAD, the Do-DT25<\/strong> on which it is based has a length of 3.1 metres<\/strong>, a'wingspan of 2.5 metres<\/strong>, can reach a maximum speed of 300 knots (approx. 555 km\/h)<\/strong> and stay in the air for about one hour<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assisted autonomy and anti-drone capability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to Airbus promotional material, LOAD will be positioned somewhere between a stray munition and an aerial combat drone<\/strong>. It will be controlled from a ground control station<\/strong> and will be able to co-ordinate with other drones using radar data and airspace imagery<\/strong>for search for, detect and - subject to authorisation - autonomously engage enemy kamikaze drones<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doubts about autonomy, but concrete progress<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In recent years<\/strong>several experts have expressed concerns about the increasing use of autonomy in weapon systems<\/strong>raising doubts about the actual effectiveness of the guarantees of maintaining human control in attack decisions<\/strong>as stated by Airbus<\/strong> in the case of LOAD<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le autonomous capabilities<\/strong> promise for this drone seems to derive from the experience gained with the Do-DT25<\/strong>. Already in the March 2023<\/strong>Airbus had successfully demonstrated the autonomous driving and control<\/strong> more drones DT-25<\/strong>managed by a A310 MRTT tanker aircraft<\/strong>. The experiment showed significant progress in the relative navigation<\/strong>in the in-flight communication<\/strong> and in the cooperative control algorithms<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Integration with Eurodrone and technological independence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a next step, Airbus plans to integrating LOAD with other unmanned aerial platforms<\/strong>such as theEurodrone<\/strong>making it operational also in areas not covered by ground defence radar<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consistent with the European objective of reduce dependence on the United States<\/strong>Airbus emphasised that the new drone does not contain US technology<\/strong>, resulting exempt from ITAR regulations<\/strong> (International Traffic in Arms Regulations). This will allow the export of the system without constraints imposed by Washington<\/strong>leaving the decisions exclusively to European user nations<\/strong>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Airbus has unveiled its new European drone, based on a small unmanned aircraft used for training over 20 years ago. LOAD (Low-Cost Air Defence) is the new 'anti-drone drone' designed to address one of the key challenges of modern air defence: reducing the cost of intercepting low-cost drones with traditional high-cost systems [...]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[284,80,203],"sgg_keywords":[],"class_list":["post-4729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internazionali","tag-autonomia","tag-difesa","tag-droni"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4729"},{"taxonomy":"sgg_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigatafolgore.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sgg_keywords?post=4729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}