French Defense project ASSYDUS aims to saturate enemy radars with swarms of drones.

It is probably easier to saturate an enemy's air defense with a swarm of drones than to deceive it, as the concept of Radar Cross Section (RCS) comes into play, according to Laurent Lagneau in Opex360. Hence, the ongoing work under the auspices of the Defense Innovation Agency (AID) as part of the ASSYDUS project (Autonomous System for Decoying Using UAV Swarms), in collaboration with Thales DMS France SAS and the Bordeaux Laboratory for Computer Science Research.
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One of the applications of ASSYDUS would be to send the drones separately toward an air defense system and then gather them into a swarm to obtain the radar cross-sectional area of a fighter-bomber (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The principle, approved by operational experts, is to ensure that drones operating in a swarm can position themselves to achieve a radar cross-sectional area equivalent to that of an aircraft or combat drone in order to deceive the radar of an enemy air defense system. While the capabilities of a single drone may be limited in terms of payload weight, dimensions, etc., the use of multiple collaborative drones forming a swarm extends the airborne capabilities of the system, while being perceived as a single entity (such as an aircraft) by the radar operator.

Studies conducted so far have used autonomous multi-rotor drones. Their initial results are promising since the teams involved in this project have managed to achieve the desired radar cross-sectional area and model this area using a swarm following the types of drones it consists of and their positions, Laurent Lagneau reports.

One of the applications of ASSYDUS would be to send the drones separately toward an air defense system and then gather them into a swarm to obtain the radar cross-sectional area of a fighter-bomber.

This project is reminiscent of an experiment conducted in 2020 by the Rapid Capabilities Office of the Royal Air Force. This experiment involved flying a swarm of drones, some of which were equipped with a BriteCloud electronic warfare module to deceive and saturate radars representative of an enemy air defense system. The BriteCloud system is a digital radio frequency memory (DRFM) device that records radio-electric signals in order to modify and retransmit them to distort the data received by a radar.

Defense News November 2023