Drone detection

Tairos drone detection is the awareness layer of Picket and a standalone counter-UAS sensing package. It combines RF, radar, acoustic and optical information because no single sensor detects every threat in every environment.

Four complementary modalities

RF detection

Passively identifies active control, video or telemetry emissions. It can provide early bearing information without transmitting, but it cannot detect a platform that produces no observable radio link.

Radar

Actively detects an airframe regardless of whether it has an active control link and provides range, bearing and motion data. Radar is integrated from an appropriate specialist source and correlated with the other sensing layers.

Acoustic detection

Passively detects motor and propeller signatures for close-in warning. It is inexpensive and useful around fixed sites, while background noise and target type determine its effectiveness.

Optical and thermal sensing

Provides visual or thermal confirmation and supports classification. Weather, lighting, field of view and sensor quality remain real constraints.

Fusion creates the useful output

The product output is not four separate alarms. Sentinel Fusion correlates the reports into one classified track and presents the result in Panorama. The operator sees one object with its contributing sensor evidence rather than reconciling separate screens by hand.

That track can cue Picket’s electronic or kinetic response layers within the authorized mission rules.

Deployment configurations

Fixed-site node

Combines sensor types on a mast or permanent structure for a base, port or critical-infrastructure perimeter.

Mobile node

Places the sensor package on a vehicle-mounted mast for forward or convoy defense.

Distributed belt

Networks multiple lower-cost passive nodes across an approach area and fuses their tracks with radar and optical confirmation where available.

Advantages

• Different physics cover different threat behaviors.
• Passive sensors add coverage without continuously transmitting.
• External radar feeds and Tairos sensors enter the same Fusion picture.
• The cue reaches the same system that manages response, operator authority and mission state.

Integration boundaries

Detection and classification inform the decision; they do not authorize an effect. Active sensing and data integration are configured around the customer’s airspace, regulatory and security requirements.