PARIS \u2014 Military units will start using drone swarms within the next two years as the underlying technology matures, according to the colonel in charge of exploring new defense technology and tactics for the French Army, as well as the Thales executive in charge of drone warfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWithin two years, we\u2019ll indeed have real use cases deployed in certain units, and widespread adoption will quickly follow, because the benefits of these swarms will be quite obvious,\u201d said Eric Lenseigne, vice president for drone warfare at defense firm Thales, speaking at the Forum Innovation D\u00e9fense in Paris last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drone swarms can circumvent two characteristics of today\u2019s battlefield, access-denial strategies and the \u201chyper-lethality\u201d of the frontline contact zone, said Col. Philippe Bignon, head of the Exploration Bureau at the French Army\u2019s Future Combat Laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While several European NATO members are testing drone-swarm technology, and Ukraine has reportedly used small swarms of several drones on the battlefield, today\u2019s unmanned systems typically still require a dedicated operator per unit. Swarm concepts envisage AI-enabled autonomous teams of drones that can sense, decide and act collectively with minimal human control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lenseigne said Thales experiments on swarm technology \u201cshow that we are on the verge\u201d of having systems that will allow for true implementation of swarms, and he said all or almost all of the necessary technological building blocks for swarm use already exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bignon said the first military capabilities will be available within two years, with more widespread rollout within five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France is working on the country\u2019s first autonomous robot combat unit in the Pendragon project, combining land and air drones and AI-based command, with a first demonstration planned for 2026 and operational deployment the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Swarms reduce risk by multiplying effectors, with only a few vectors in the drone swarm or pack able to accomplish the mission, according to Bignon. Artificial intelligence will allow the role of the swarm leader to be managed dynamically if the leader is lost, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To circumvent access-denial strategies, Bignon described a scenario of \u201cfairly complex swarm raids\u201d combining suppression of enemy defenses, electromagnetic jamming, and attacks on communication and logistics supply lines and command nodes, which then allow for exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a whole strategy for the use of swarms to be developed around penetration actions,\u201d Bignon said. \u201cThis is undoubtedly one of the keys to breaking the tactical deadlock that we are seeing in Ukraine today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While new use cases for drones have emerged in Ukraine, the mode of operation has changed little for now, with pilots in most cases controlling a drone via a data link from beginning to end of a mission, according to Lenseigne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t get the impression that this particular issue of swarms is progressing particularly quickly in Ukraine,\u201d Lenseigne said. \u201cIn fact, what is striking in Ukraine is the very large number of drones that require a very large number of operators, and we are not seeing this capacity emerge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though Ukraine is working on the technology, the country is not yet using swarms on a massive scale, according to Bignon. He said what will appear first is packs of five to 10 drones, which Ukrainians are working on, rather than swarms \u201cin the sense that we might imagine them\u201d of thousands of vectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another use of swarms might be to resupply troops stuck in combat positions because of what Bignon called the hyper-lethality of the battlefield, with anything spotted moving near the frontline in Ukraine potentially destroyed within minutes. Swarms could also be used for deception maneuvers, the colonel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Swarms will accelerate the robotization and automation along the frontline in Ukraine, where there is already an area \u201cwhere humans almost don\u2019t intervene any more, only machines,\u201d said Bignon. That will create a zone of \u201cvery high lethality\u201d and \u201cundoubtedly, the appearance of combat zones without humans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lenseigne said a future battlefield might be a place where \u201ca rapidly dwindling number of inhabited platforms, highly sophisticated and very expensive, will coexist with an ever-increasing number of uninhabited objects that move around in swarms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One challenge will be ethical, because \u201cswarms equal artificial intelligence,\u201d according to Bignon. Operators will both have to understand possible deviations of AI and retrain their swarm system if necessary, as well as take responsibility, including legal, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An underestimated aspect of swarms may be the psychological impact on soldiers who deploy them or face enemy swarms, Bignon said, comparing swarm warfare to the \u201cdehumanized combat\u201d some French troops have faced in the face of suicide commandos. \u201cObviously, in a dehumanized combat, there\u2019s a sort of coldness behind it all that somewhat gives you goosebumps.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The human factor could slow down the adoption of swarm technology, as people will have to adapt to \u201cenormous changes in the way we approach combat, systems, and how we handle all of this,\u201d said Lenseigne at Thales. \u201cAnd that is something that man must fully integrate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other potential obstacles to deploying hundreds or thousands of drones are the logistics required, as well as hardware integration, from packing drones in containers to figuring out how to power them until they\u2019re sent on a mission, the executive said. There will be \u201ca whole field that will have to be developed\u201d to support swarms, according to Lenseigne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll these aspects seem trivial in terms of the difficulties compared to something like a highly intelligent system, but in reality, it\u2019s hard, it\u2019s physical,\u201d Lenseigne said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cObviously, in a dehumanized combat, there\u2019s a sort of coldness behind it all that somewhat gives you goosebumps,” a French Army official predicted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":119703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":21,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[29,21],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3282],"class_list":["post-38301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-unmanned"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"6CTGCESNFNEUHKV2FH3PJQRR2A","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/europe\/2025\/12\/03\/france-is-two-years-from-fielding-drone-swarms-in-its-armed-forces\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n