Ukrainian drones will be equipped with reconnaissance SAR radars from the French company Harmattan AI, allowing reconnaissance even in the presence of clouds or fog.
The information was announced by Mouad M’Ghari, CEO of Harmattan AI, in an interview with Le Grand Continent, according to the Ukrainian portal Militarnyi.
According to M’Ghari, Harmattan AI has developed a SAR radar for drones under 150 kg. This system will now be integrated into Ukrainian systems and deployed in Ukraine, although it is not yet clear which Ukrainian drones will receive the French radars.
SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) is an active remote sensing system that uses microwave radiation to create highly detailed images of the Earth’s surface, allowing imaging in any weather conditions: rain, fog, day or night.
The Sahara SAR radar from Harmattan AI can capture images with 0.25 m resolution at a 2 km distance and 1.2 m at a 10 km distance. The radar module weighs less than 3.5 kg.
During the interview, M’Ghari also noted that European manufacturers have much to learn from certain Ukrainian systems or manufacturers with years of war experience since 2014.
“Industrial cooperation is often viewed from a mercantilist perspective: since some companies sell defense systems and there is a war ongoing, we should also sell them,” said M’Ghari.
“Such a rudimentary contract is undoubtedly appropriate—both for the Ukrainians and for us—but it is also interesting to collect data and draw industrial and technological conclusions to understand the modern theater of war.”
“This involves, in particular, understanding the limitations of electronic warfare: when it is no longer possible to communicate via radio or to locate using GPS, how should one act on the modern battlefield?” he analyzed.
According to him, sometimes it is necessary to admit that the enemy is better, and the defense sector historically has never been able to accept that.
It is a fact that war has changed. Nowadays, it has become statistical. Therefore, the proportion of systems capable of operating above a certain performance level is important.
It is not necessary that 100% of the systems work. It is far more important that a significant portion of the systems delivered works. Delivering 1,000 systems where 100% work is far less useful than delivering 100,000 systems where 80% work.
This issue concerns not only production or quality, but also the definition of the product and the program itself. According to M’Ghari, this suggests that government agencies responsible for weapons acquisition need to completely change their approach to system procurement.
It is no longer necessary to seek the complete elimination of risks in system development. Instead, it should be recognized that the rapid delivery of a product is better than the delivery of a perfect product, so speed has become more important than quality.
“The real strategic weapon of World War II was not the bomber, but the factory. In the USA, Germany or anywhere else, all countries that survived the war depended on it,” emphasized M’Ghari.
Photo: Serhiy Zgurets. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
