ARES Shield

What we do

ARES Shield is building what it describes as the first European platform for active orbital defence. Its modules can be attached to a customer's satellite or fly on their own as a constellation in low Earth orbit, sharing sensor data so that a tracked object never drops out of view.

How it works

• Detect — every module is a multispectral sensor node, and tracking is handed from one module to the next.
• Decide — the onboard FightFinder AI classifies objects and chooses a response on an escalation ladder, and keeps working when cut off from ground control.
• Disable — solid-state gallium-nitride emitters fire directional high-power microwave pulses of up to 10 MW, from temporary disruption to permanently disabling a target's electronics, without creating orbital debris. Several modules can synchronise their pulses to reach distant or shielded targets.

The first version of the system will be three modules, one of them a research module acting as the simulated hostile object.

On Earth too

Ares Earth Defense applies the same approach on the ground: AI that fuses radar, RF, optical and thermal data to detect, classify and track drones, on air, land and maritime carriers.