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FenrisDEFENCE · FD-0001
SystemsHEIMDAL
IN PRODUCTION

Heimdal

C-UAS · DIRECTED ENERGYFixed-site laser counter-UAS system

A laser counter-UAS system built around the part that is actually hard: finding a small drone, telling it from a bird, and holding a precise track on it long enough to burn it down. Runs with a human in the loop, or as an unattended sentry.

CORE
DETECT + TRACK
SENSORS
EO · IR · RF
EFFECTOR
LASER
MODE
MANUAL / SENTRY

Small drones have rewritten the threat picture. They are cheap, fast and increasingly autonomous, and the hard part of stopping them was never the effector. It is seeing them at all, separating them from birds and clutter, and holding a track steady enough to put something on. HEIMDAL is built around that problem. A validated detection-and-tracking engine fuses several sensors into one stable track and drives a precision pointing platform to keep that track locked, and a high-precision laser does the defeating. The same software core runs in VIDAR, the vehicle-mounted system, so capability developed on one platform carries to the other.

Contents07 SHEETS
Design intent
0101 / 06

The tracking was the hard part

Most counter-drone systems are an effector looking for a sensor. HEIMDAL was built the other way round, around the part that is actually unsolved: seeing a small autonomous drone at all, rejecting the birds, and holding the track steady enough for the laser to do its work.

0202 / 06

No single sensor is enough

A modern autonomous drone can be quiet, cold, small and radio-silent. Any one sensor has a case it misses, so the search layer, the day channel, the thermal channel and an optional RF cue are fused rather than offered as options.

0303 / 06

Cue and slew, not stare and hope

The wide-field layer finds and roughly places a target; the tracking head slews to it, confirms at high magnification on day or thermal, and locks. That split is what lets one platform handle more than one target.

0404 / 06

A magazine you cannot shoot dry

The default effector is directed energy, and an engagement costs electricity and nothing else. There is no interceptor inventory to forecast, transport, store or run out of halfway through a defence, and nothing falls back down onto whatever is underneath.

0505 / 06

One core, both platforms

HEIMDAL and VIDAR run the same detection, fusion and tracking engine. Work done on one improves both, and an operator trained on one is trained on the other.

0606 / 06

Two modes, chosen on purpose

Manual keeps a person in the loop for every engagement. Sentry lets the system engage inside criteria set before it was armed, for the case where the reaction time a person needs is longer than the time available. Selecting a mode is a deliberate, authenticated act and it is logged.

How it works
N.01

The effector was never the hard part

Ask what stops a small drone and the answer is usually a weapon: a gun, a jammer, a laser, an interceptor. All of those work, and none of them is the reason counter-UAS is difficult. The difficulty is upstream of the effector, in the part nobody demonstrates at a trade show.

A quadcopter at two kilometres is a few pixels. So is a bird, a bag, a distant aircraft and a piece of thermal noise. Something has to look at all of them, discard almost all of them, and be right about the one that matters, continuously, for hours, without a person watching. Then it has to hold that one steadily enough that whatever is on the mount can be brought to bear.

That is the problem HEIMDAL is built around. The laser is the easy half. Everything that makes it useful happens before the beam does anything: finding the target, being right about it, and staying on it.

N.02

Why it takes more than one sensor

Every sensing method against small drones has a case it misses. Radar struggles with something this small and slow, especially against ground clutter. Electro-optical needs light. Thermal needs a temperature difference, and an electric motor on a cold day is not much of one. RF detection finds only the aircraft that transmit.

Building around any single one of them means accepting its blind spot as the system's blind spot. So the search layer, the day channel, the thermal channel and an optional RF cue are all present, and more importantly they are fused: their detections are translated into one common bearing frame and associated into a single track per target.

That association step is the one that gets skipped. Without it a system has several sensors each reporting their own version of events, and an operator arbitrating between them under time pressure. With it, there is one track.

N.03

Why a laser and not a gun

The effector was chosen for the same reason as everything else here: what happens when you run out.

Every kinetic counter-drone system loses the exchange twice over. The interceptor costs more than the target, which is an economic problem, and there are only so many of them on the vehicle, which is a logistics one. A laser changes both. Depth of magazine becomes a question of power generation rather than resupply, and the cost of an engagement is a number on an electricity bill.

It also changes what happens underneath. There is no fragmentation pattern and no spent interceptor coming back down onto whatever the defended airspace happens to sit over, which is usually people. What it costs is power and a clear line of sight, and both of those are real constraints rather than footnotes.

N.04

One core, and why that matters

HEIMDAL and VIDAR are the same software. The detection engine, the fusion, the association, the predictive filter and the pointing loop are developed once and deployed on both, with the differences confined to the mount, the power and the stabilisation.

The practical consequence is that improvement compounds. A better discrimination model developed against clutter at a fixed site reaches the vehicle system as well. An operator trained on one is trained on the other. A fault found on one is fixed on both.

It is also how the leading counter-UAS programmes are structured, and for the same reason: the tracking backbone is the expensive, slow part to get right, and it is worth spanning every platform and every effector you will ever field.

Employment

Where it is used

  • 01Critical national infrastructure
  • 02Forward operating bases and perimeters
  • 03Airfields and approach protection
  • 04Convoy and vehicle self-protection
  • 05Ports, energy terminals and industrial sites
  • 06Temporary protection of events and visits

What it will not do

Every sensing method has a blind spot. These are HEIMDAL’s, stated plainly. A capability you find out about in the field is worse than one you were told about here.

Tracking is not a magic detector

Fusion makes the most of what the sensors return; it does not invent returns that were never there. A drone flying low behind terrain, in heavy weather, or below the search layer's resolution is not tracked, and no amount of filtering changes that.

One platform, one aimpoint

The architecture redirects between targets quickly, and quickly is not simultaneously. Against a genuine saturation attack the limit is slew rate and the number of mounts you have emplaced, not the software.

The effector sets the engagement envelope

HEIMDAL points wherever the track goes. What can actually be done at that bearing and range is a property of whatever is fitted, not of the tracker. Do not read tracking range as engagement range.

Sentry mode is a decision you make in advance

Running unattended means the engagement criteria have to be right before the system is armed, because nobody is arbitrating them afterwards. That is a command decision about volume, classification and rules of engagement, and it is not one the equipment can make for you.

A laser needs line of sight and power

Cloud, fog, heavy rain and smoke all degrade it, and it cannot shoot through terrain. The magazine is bounded by power generation rather than by rounds, which is an advantage until the generator is the thing that fails.

Specification
DETECTION
ArchitectureMulti-sensor from the ground up
Search layerWide-field, detects motion across the sky
Electro-opticalDay channel, high magnification on the head
ThermalNight and low-visibility channel
RF cueOptional layer, extends early warning
DiscriminationDrone from bird, drone from clutter
Detection rangeTBC
False-alarm rateTBC
TRACKING
ArchitectureCue and slew: search detects, head confirms and locks
FusionAll detections into one common bearing frame
AssociationOne track per target, not one per sensor
PredictionFiltered track drives the platform ahead of the target
PointingPrecision closed-loop gimbal
Multiple targetsRedirects between tracks; slew rate sets the limit
Track accuracyTBC
Slew rateTBC
EFFECTOR
TypeHigh-precision laser. No munition, no resupply
PrincipleTrack is held; energy is put on the same point
Magazine depthBounded by power, not by rounds
Cost per engagementElectrical power only
CollateralNo fragmentation, no spent interceptor falling
Time to effectBeam is instantaneous on target
Target classesGroup 1–2 small unmanned
Effective rangeTBC
Power drawTBC
AUTHORITY & C2
Detection and trackingRuns unattended in both modes
Manual modeOperator commits every engagement
Sentry modeEngages inside briefed criteria without a commit
Mode selectionDeliberate, authenticated, and logged
Engagement criteriaSet before arming: volume, classification, ROE
AbortAvailable at any point in either mode
Air pictureFeeds track data out and takes cues in
IntegrationA layer inside a wider defence, not a closed island
LoggingTrack and commit history recorded
Questions

Asked and answered

What buyers ask about passive detection, answered without the hedging. Anything not covered here, put to us directly.

Ask us something else
Q.01Is it autonomous?

It can be. Detection and tracking always run unattended. Engagement is selectable: manual mode puts a person in the loop for every shot, and sentry mode lets the system engage inside criteria set before it was armed. Choosing sentry mode is a deliberate, authenticated act, the criteria are defined in advance, and both the mode and every engagement are logged.

Q.02Why a laser?

It removes the interceptor from the engagement. Nothing to expend, nothing to resupply, and nothing falling back down onto whatever is underneath. Depth of magazine becomes a question of power generation rather than of what is left on the pallet. The cost is that it needs line of sight and power, and weather degrades it.

Q.03What is the difference between HEIMDAL and VIDAR?

The mount, the power and the stabilisation. HEIMDAL is mast- or structure-mounted for persistent watch over a fixed site; VIDAR is vehicle-mounted and gyro-stabilised so it holds a track while the vehicle drives. Both run the same detection, fusion and tracking core and the same laser.

Q.04How does it tell a drone from a bird?

By not relying on one sensor to do it. The search layer finds motion, the tracking head confirms at high magnification on day and thermal channels, and an optional RF cue adds evidence for anything transmitting. Classification comes from the fused track rather than from a single return.

Q.05Can it handle more than one target?

It redirects between tracks rather than engaging them at once. Cue-and-slew exists precisely so the platform is not tied up staring at one target, but the honest limit is slew rate and how many mounts are emplaced.

Q.06Will it work with our existing air picture?

That is the intent. It feeds track data out and takes cues in, and is meant to sit as a sensing and tracking layer inside a wider layered defence rather than as a closed system with its own screen.

Q.07What happens if the link to the operator drops?

In manual mode it keeps tracking and holds fire, because the commit it is waiting for cannot arrive. Loss of link never promotes the system into sentry mode: that is a deliberate selection made beforehand, never a fallback the equipment chooses for itself.

Q.08What is the detection range?

TBC

Q.09Will it work with our existing sensors?

The RF cue layer is optional and external tracks can be taken in, so an existing air picture feeds it rather than competing with it. It is meant to sit as a layer inside a wider defence rather than as a closed system with its own screen.

Continue
Engagement

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VIDAR

Vehicle-mounted laser counter-UAS system

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