A Dutch technology company is developing AI-powered software to integrate different drone and air-defence systems, with the technology now being deployed on Ukraine’s battlefield.
Amsterdam-based Intelic has a €30 million ($33.5 million) contract with the Dutch Defence Ministry to upgrade the country’s air defences. The company also has an office in Kyiv and is among dozens of firms operating from converted hangars at a former Dutch airbase.
During a test at the airbase in late September, a high-speed drone was launched to intercept a mock enemy target detected by radar. Intelic’s AI-powered Nexus software combined information from multiple radars, sensors and cameras before a reconnaissance drone used image recognition to verify the target as an enemy drone.
A human operator made the final decision to launch the interceptor during the test, but Intelic CEO and founder Maurits Korthals Altes said the process could eventually become fully autonomous.
“Most of these systems use AI at the edge, so in the drone itself, to be able to hit a target, a flying drone for instance, and then actually get intercepted at high speeds,” he said.
AI can also provide decision support to commanders who may have only seconds to determine whether to fire at an incoming target.
The integration of different systems is designed to help commanders respond faster. At high speeds, Korthals Altes said manually intercepting a target becomes difficult, making a more autonomous system necessary.
European companies produce many different types of drones, but their systems do not always communicate with one another. Intelic says Nexus is designed to serve as a single platform connecting them.
“Right now in Europe, there are over 700 drone manufacturers, and if we want to stay sovereign within Europe, we need to be able to have a system that is the connecting tissue between those different systems,” said Anika Kempter, a senior software engineer at Intelic.
Kempter said Ukrainian brigades can have different drones from different manufacturers, each using separate screens and systems.
“Nexus solves this problem. So they can connect all of their drones in one system,” she said.
At the airbase demonstration, engineers used a mobile command post where radar detection, AI verification and interceptor drones could be monitored and operated through a single interface.
Intelic’s command-and-control system is now being rolled out in Ukraine, where some operational decisions are still communicated through chat applications or phone calls. The system supplements Delta, Ukraine’s own advanced battlefield management platform.
Kempter said replacing human communication with autonomous systems could cut minutes from the time between detecting a drone and attempting to intercept it, potentially making a difference in life-or-death situations.
Russia has also developed high-altitude, jet-powered attack drones. Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said Russia launched 2,100 such drones and 136 missiles at Ukraine during the first three weeks of September, killing 288 people.
The rapid development of drone technology can make air-defence hardware obsolete quickly, but Intelic says its software can help address that problem by allowing new weapons systems to be added to the platform.
“That’s very important in an environment that’s unpredictable,” Korthals Altes said. “Because nobody really knows how a war or threat would look … in two years. We have an idea, but we don’t know for sure. So that adaptability is key.”
Ojo Triumph
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