03.12.2025
By Josh Luckenbaugh from National Defense magazine.
ORLANDO, Florida — Drone warfare has become a major element of the modern battlefield, as evidenced by the war in Ukraine. Multiple vendors at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference showcased new capabilities to help prepare warfighters to operate and defend against uncrewed aerial systems.
French aerospace and defense giant Thales unveiled at the show its new drone training capability consisting of sensors and transmitters that can be affixed to UAS to simulate different effects.
Bruno Delacourte, the company’s director of strategy, marketing and product policy, said the new system can be installed on “almost every kind of drone,” whether they weigh a few hundred grams or several dozen kilograms. This allows forces to “train with what they have,” he said, and means the capability is “future-proof” and will still work with new drones as they come online.
The system is also versatile enough to cover most of the potential use cases for drone training, he said. “It can be used by red forces or by blue forces” depending on whether you want to practice counter-UAS tactics or refine how your force wants to use drones, he said.
It can simulate the effects of drone neutralization and provide real-time feedback on a drone’s status during training exercises, a Thales press release stated. It can also simulate the self-detonation of a loitering munition or an armed drone releasing an explosive device.
The system is easy to use, taking a matter of minutes to install, and can be fully integrated with the command-and-control platform managing the training exercise, said Rolf Gasser, technical director and head of engineering for Thales’ training and simulation business line. It can also collect data from the exercise so operators can conduct analysis afterwards and refine tactics and doctrine, Delacourte added.
Meanwhile, Georgia-based tech company InVeris debuted at the show its new fats Drone system allowing for UAS and counter-UAS training in a simulated environment.
The system leverages drone capabilities developed by BAE Systems OneArc — formerly Bohemia Interactive Simulations — for its VBS4 simulation platform, as well as proprietary models of UAS currently used by the Defense Department, said Michael Brazell, product manager for screen-based weapons and systems at InVeris.
The system can simulate a drone’s flight dynamics and how a particular payload affects them, and how they change again if the payload is dropped, Brazell said in an interview. It is deployable on a standard display or through a headset that simulates first-person view drone goggles.
It can enable training for a variety of mission sets, such as one-way attack, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and forward observation for mortar teams, he said.
The system can also simulate the counter-UAS platforms drone operators may encounter, such as electronic warfare systems and kinetic weapons. “You can actually, on our screen-based system, fly drones and basically have someone sitting there … and shoot them down like it’s Duck Hunt,” Brazell said.
For after-action reviews, fats Drone can provide operators their total flight time, how far they flew and their average altitude, he said.
“I know a lot of drones have to stay below the radar line, but when you’re flying that [low], it positions you to being shot down by kinetics,” he said. “If you’re flying at 30 feet to avoid radar, that’s within the range of a 12-gauge shotgun.” The system can be programmed with AI actors to shoot drones down if they fly too low, he added.
I/ITSEC also marked the debut of a multinational defense consortium called Fairpoint. Made up of Czech-based companies Quanti, TRL Drones and Vrgineers, as well as the International Defence Aerospace Group, the consortium’s goal is to create a drone “training academy,” Fairpoint Program Director Portia Roscoe said in an interview.
“It’s not just simulation and hardware, it’s the whole wraparound training ecosystem that goes with it,” including instructors, courseware and analysis, Roscoe said. “Primarily, it’s about a training ecosystem and providing training for tactical operators of UAVs, and the command-level training as well.”
Vrgineers and Quanti will be providing simulation tools — like InVeris, Fairpoint also plans to use OneArc’s VBS4 platform, Roscoe said — and TRL Drones is “providing a lot of the flight models and drone data and insight into missions and initiatives.”
TRL Drones has “the connections into those operating on the front line at the moment, so they can access the real-life, lived experience of the drone operators on the front line and bring that in to inform our training and our curriculum, and make sure that we’re staying up to date with what’s going on,” she said.
One challenge with drone training is that “for large sovereign nations who want to build their own sovereign training capability, by the time you’ve set the requirement, the requirement is out of date” as UAS technology evolves rapidly, Roscoe said. “So, we want to build something that’s more adaptable and more current so that you can keep refreshed.”
The Fairpoint team has the expertise to quickly adapt to new technology, she added. “As long as we’ve got the data about the size, shape, aerodynamics of each asset, we can model that really quickly and have that in our training system almost straight away.”
Fairpoint’s goal is to have “really close relationships with operators on the front line,” Roscoe said. “We’re going to be getting them to test our system and update it as we go along.”
The hope is that it isn’t just a “one and done” platform either, she said. “We want to be able to offer new threat libraries so they can practice emerging situations [and] newsletters with information” on new trends “so that our customers can understand how things are moving on the front line.”
Fairpoint is aiming to have a tactical drone operator training prototype and syllabus ready by April, with the full system scheduled to be up and running by October, Roscoe said.
The command-level training platform will be developed in tandem, she added. “I’m going to need to see how long it takes for the tactical-level stuff to come through, but very soon after is my hope, because I really do think that that’s a developing need that we want to address relatively urgently.”
Fairpoint is also hoping to engage with NATO to support alliance innovation and exercises, Roscoe said.
“The doctrine is being written and rewritten every day. So, if we can play a role in supporting nations in developing that and keeping current, then that’s what we’re going to want to do,” she said.
The full article can be found online here: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2025/12/3/industry-bringing-new-drone-training-systems-online
ENDS
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