Thales in India

Gilles Bono

As India marks its 79th Independence Day, it is a powerful reminder of the nation’s enduring spirit and its clear vision for a developed and self-reliant future by 2047. At Thales, we reflect with pride on our role as a trusted partner in India’s transformative journey. Supporting the armed forces with critical, future-ready technologies, we stand committed to advancing India’s security and technological aspirations in an increasingly complex global landscape.

Technology advances, threats evolve

In this era of rapid technological transformation and evolving threats, securing the skies to protect national sovereignty has become more crucial than ever. The nature of these threats is constantly changing—ranging from a variety of drones and stealth aircraft to hypersonic missiles and sophisticated cyber-attacks targeting defence systems.

Today, the modern battlefield is no longer limited to land and sea; airspace has emerged as a vital frontier that demands agility, precision, and resilience to ensure national security.

Protecting our Skies

India must continue to enhance its airspace management and defence strategies to combat future aerial threats. Thales stands committed to supporting the nation’s ambitions through cutting-edge, future-ready technologies.

We provide nations with comprehensive solutions that secure airspace at all altitudes. From early threat detection to interception, Thales’s systems are designed to counter the full spectrum of airborne threats, ensuring safety of critical infrastructure and national assets.

As a world leader, Thales possesses a unique capability to design, develop and deploy equipment, systems and services that meet the most complex service requirements. From ground-based radar systems to interception and command & control solutions, Thales delivers mission-critical capabilities that are interoperable, modular, and combat-proven. We also bring the capability to upgrade solutions for a large range of combat aircraft.

Committed to supporting the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ vision, we continue to strengthen our partnerships with Indian industry through joint ventures such as those with Bharat Electronics Ltd for radars, as well as collaborations with Bharat Dynamics Limited, MKU, and others.

Ensuring Airspace Security in the Age of Drones

As Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) proliferate and their ability to fly with ever greater discretion and manoeuvrability increases, the need for advanced Counter-UAS (C-UAS) capabilities becomes critical. High value national infrastructure and civilian airspace around sensitive locations such as airports, stadiums, and major sporting events need to be protected. Thales is at the forefront in confronting the growing threat from drones with systems designed to detect, track, and neutralise hostile unmanned vehicles.

Innovative technologies like Thales’s Eagleshield CUAS for airports is one such system. A multi-sensor system with the Gamekeeper holographic radar, command and control systems, it visualises the threat environment and supports coordinated responses. It uses effectors such as the RapidEagle interceptor drone to develop integrated drone countermeasures systems capable of detecting, identifying, classifying and neutralising unauthorised unmanned systems.

Thales, playing the role of system integrator, has built an ecosystem of small and medium-sized businesses, to develop the Spy Ranger family of mini-UAS. It provides front-line units with autonomous intelligence gathering and offensive reconnaissance capabilities, making them more versatile, safer, and connected than ever before.

Multi-layered air defence for enhanced security

As the defence landscape continues to evolve, having a complete and up-to-date recognised air picture of the full threat spectrum at every layer of the airspace enables nations to safeguard their sovereignty. Command and control centres rely on surface radars (short, mid and long-range) to provide them with an accurate 360 degree, up-to-date air surveillance picture. The SAMP/T integrated missile defence system, co-developed by Thales for instance, is designed to counter threats at medium range and provide the visibility needed across the entire spectrum of air threats to support graduated, coordinated responses by the armed forces. Combined with weapons systems based on the Ground Master 200 radar and effectors such as the LMM (Lightweight Multirole Missile) or the StarStreak High Velocity Missile, it establishes a bubble of protection against increasingly diversified threats and the increasing number of lower layer and surface threats, such as drones, rockets, artillery, mortars and all kinds of attacks from the ground.

Redefining modern warfare with Collaborative Combat

In the context of modern warfare, effective air defence is no longer limited to isolated systems. Today, collaborative combat introduces new complexities with all the assets deployed on the battlefield including vehicles, drones, sensors, infantry units, etc. becoming interconnected and capable of operating as a network. From air and space to land and naval operations and cyberspace, collaborative combat is accelerating operations across all domains, particularly in high-intensity warfare, and holds immense potential for the future of defence. Building on its cloud capabilities, Thales is now developing the real-time data solutions that will form the backbone of collaborative combat tomorrow, speeding the decision-making process and giving friendly forces a clear advantage in the battlefield.

AI is at forefront of securing skies

As aerospace systems become more complex, artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly vital role in decision-making, automation, and threat analysis. At Thales, we advocate for TrUE AI (Transparent, Understandable, Ethical AI) approach to shorten response times, enhance threat detection, and support human operators in high-pressure environments.

Thales is proud to stand alongside the nation as a trusted partner in shaping the future of Indian aerospace and defence sector. 

(The writer is vice president, India, Thales)