Drone Solutions

As a major global actor in the aviation community, Thales is bringing to the drone ecosystem its unique combination of domain expertise to transform the future of unmanned aviation and urban air mobility (UAM). From flight avionics to UAV system design & operations, wireless communications systems, digital identity and cybersecurity, positioning and navigation enabling satellite systems, Thales is redefining what is possible in this UAS sector. With three out of every four commercial aircraft taking off and landing with our Air Traffic Management solutions, we are also leading the way in unified Airspace Traffic Management including small drones, long-range drones and VTOL passenger aircraft that route them around restricted airspace.

With the existing avionics pedigree of Thales, we provide a broad range of technical solutions for drone manufacturers and drone operators to support ever increasingly challenging drone operations, at scale. We focus on developing solutions, which ensure operations are not only safe, but compliant with existing legislation. With both national and international regulations in mind, our products support the risk assessment methodology for all commercial drone applications like drone surveillance, delivery and many others. 

The commercial drone operations of today are not only complex but are often impeded by the challenges of ensuring compliance with regulations, avionics security, long-range datalinks, but also the administrative burden of planning operations which hinders scalability.

ScaleFlyt, Thales' new product line for UAS, seeks to address these challenges which will be faced by the drone operators of today, and tomorrow. Thales brings to market a suite of products and services which support complex drone operations ensuring a high level of safety: from Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) operations requiring Remote Identification modules compliant with global standards, to Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations (BVLOS) looking for support on SORA (Specific Operations Risk Assessment) applications.

As enterprise UAS experts, we understand the operational challenges and risks involved with running an enterprise drone programme. We help take away the complexity of running drone operations, making the process efficient and streamlined. With our digital services platform, we give the customer a single integration source of our entire suite of products whilst helping relieve the administrative burden of managing drone activities.

Thales is developing a package of technologies designed for small drone up to the largest VTOL passenger aircraft with retrofit or integration at OEM level that combines robotics, safety and security systems and certified avionics to guarantee the highest levels of safety for UAV and UAM operations to support drone makers in airworthiness challenges. Thales increases the level of confidence that drone operations will stay under control within the boundaries of the intended operation.

Thales is used to working with the levels of assurance and compliance expected by large organisations such as the military and government agencies. 

Thales has over 60 years of experience in designing and manufacturing onboard and ground systems and equipment for aircraft and aircraft operations.

As an example, we have delivered Europe’s largest UAV programme, Watchkeeper, with now more than 100,000 hours of operational flying experience. Even more recently, Thales has developed SpyRanger, a range of mini-drones for surveillance.

With the massive increase in the volume of air traffic including UAVs, creating a seamless sky for all users, manned and unmanned, has become urgent necessity. ANSPs, airports, cities, the police and drone users need to easily and efficiently manage the safe presence of drones.

Thales has introduced TopSky UAS, addressing the challenges of UAS integration into the airspace. The collaborative digital cloud-based platform faciliates interoperability with ATC systems and proposes a suite of services which enable coordination and a fast decision-making process.

While UAS applications are growing exponentially, together with their autonomous capabilities, customers require an adapted airspace management solution for get fast access to the airspace and executing missions in the most efficient way, managing UAS operations and maintaining a safe and secured airspace and coordinating operations and decisions with other stakeholders.

Thales' customers already rely on TopSky UAS as a high-performance, high-availability, scalable and modular system to ensure safe and efficient operations into the sky. 

As an FAA-approved UAS service supplier of the Low Altitude Authorization & Notification Capability (LAANC), Thales is supporting UAS traffic management across the U.S. in areas such as Noth Dakota: Thales has signed an agreement to support the State of North Dakota's effort to build a state-wide unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) network for safe BVLOS operations and deployed its system in France. Thales, as the leading integrator of Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) into air traffic management systems, will focus on all elements of the UAS integration into the national airspace over North Dakota.

Further, internationally, Thales is providing UAS traffic management for organizations such as the French air traffic management organization, Direction des Services de la Navigation Aérienne. 

The Group plays a leading role in SESAR (Single European Sky) and NextGen developments which ensures that TopSky - ATC not only complies with international and European standards, but also continuously presents the latest innovation and capabilities.