European drone training sites mushroom in nod to Ukraine war tactics
MILAN — Drone tactics emerging from the war in Ukraine have inspired other European countries to intensify their military-experimentation campaigns, with a new crop of testing facilities designed to test the small aircraft in war-like conditions.
Estonia inaugurated its first drone training center, located in the western part of the Baltic country, last week. The facility is meant to enhance the unmanned systems training of the Estonian Defense Forces and NATO allied units.
'The experience from the war in Ukraine shows that drones and unmanned systems are crucial in modern combat – developing Estonia's defense capabilities requires that we elevate our drone training,' Estonia's Defense League quoted Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur as saying.
The site, which cost roughly €5 million ($5.7 million) and was financed by Luxembourg, covers 1,300 square meters and includes classrooms, storage, equipment maintenance areas as well as accommodations, according to Estonian public broadcaster ERR.
It will seek to integrate and draw from Ukraine's wartime expertise in drone warfare as well as NATO's to offer key infrastructure for national forces and industry players.
An increasing number of European states are following similar steps in attempts to trial drones in real-world scenarios to test their performance and reliability.
Obstacles to be expected in actual conflict include bad weather and enemy jamming of control signals, for example.
Earlier this month, Denmark announced the creation of a new drone centre at the Hans Christian Andersen airport in Odense to serve as a training site for the Danish military.
The airport already has another testing facility. Dubbed the UAS Denmark Test Center and launched in 2013, it focuses on training personnel in beyond-visual-line-of-sight, or BVLOS, flight zones.
In March, the Danish government said it would dedicate $110 million to the new section, building on lessons from the Ukraine war. By 2026, approximately 100 Danish drone operators are expected to be training there, as reported AFP.
In another example, ZenaTech, a company headquartered in Canada that specializes in artificial intelligence, announced in January that it was setting up a BVLOS drone trial facility in Turkey.
'The facility will serve as a product testing site for the company's subsidiary ZenaDrone 1000 model drones designed for the U.S. defense branches and NATO – it will be fully set up and operational during the first quarter of 2025,' ZenaTech said in a statement.
As part of Finland's recently published national drone strategy, the country will seek to prioritize investments in drone infrastructure, specifically large-scale laboratories and open-air test sites. The document cites Finnish Arctic conditions as a unique and challenging testing environment.
In 2024, the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, known as Eurocontrol, conducted a survey of 31 civil and military test centers across member states to report on their capabilities and the challenges.
A majority of the respondents were from the European UAS Test Centres Alliance, which comprises 35 organizations from over 17 countries, that seek to enhance and support the development of the drone ecosystem and leverage synergies between the different sites.
The three main operational concerns faced by the facilities were listed as airspace integration, technical reliability, and privacy. The non-operational ones included flight approval by authorities and funding.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Verge
31 minutes ago
- The Verge
Anthropic launches new Claude service for military and intelligence use
Anthropic on Thursday announced Claude Gov, its product designed specifically for U.S. defense and intelligence agencies. The AI models have looser guardrails for government use and are trained to better analyze classified information. The company said the models it's announcing 'are already deployed by agencies at the highest level of U.S. national security,' and that access to those models will be limited to government agencies handling classified information. The company did not confirm how long they had been in use. Claude Gov models are specifically designed to uniquely handle government needs, like threat assessment and intelligence analysis, per Anthropic's blog post. And although the company said they 'underwent the same rigorous safety testing as all of our Claude models,' the models have certain specifications for national security work. For example, they 'refuse less when engaging with classified information' that's fed into them, something consumer-facing Claude is trained to flag and avoid. Claude Gov's models also have greater understanding of documents and context within defense and intelligence, according to Anthropic, and better proficiency in languages and dialects relevant to national security. Use of AI by government agencies has long been scrutinized because of its potential harms and ripple effects for minorities and vulnerable communities. There's been a long list of wrongful arrests across multiple U.S. states due to police use of facial recognition, documented evidence of bias in predictive policing, and discrimination in government algorithms that assess welfare aid. For years, there's also been an industry-wide controversy over large tech companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon allowing the military — particularly in Israel — to use their AI products, with campaigns and public protests under the No Tech for Apartheid movement. Anthropic's usage policy specifically dictates that any user must 'Not Create or Facilitate the Exchange of Illegal or Highly Regulated Weapons or Goods,' including using Anthropic's products or services to 'produce, modify, design, market, or distribute weapons, explosives, dangerous materials or other systems designed to cause harm to or loss of human life.' At least eleven months ago, the company said it created a set of contractual exceptions to its usage policy that are 'carefully calibrated to enable beneficial uses by carefully selected government agencies.' Certain restrictions — such as disinformation campaigns, the design or use of weapons, the construction of censorship systems, and malicious cyber operations — would remain prohibited. But Anthropic can decide to 'tailor use restrictions to the mission and legal authorities of a government entity,' although it will aim to 'balance enabling beneficial uses of our products and services with mitigating potential harms.' Claude Gov is Anthropic's answer to ChatGPT Gov, OpenAI's product for U.S. government agencies, which it launched in January. It's also part of a broader trend of AI giants and startups alike looking to bolster their businesses with government agencies, especially in an uncertain regulatory landscape. When OpenAI announced ChatGPT Gov, the company said that within the past year, more than 90,000 employees of federal, state, and local governments had used its technology to translate documents, generate summaries, draft policy memos, write code, build applications, and more. Anthropic declined to share numbers or use cases of the same sort, but the company is part of Palantir's FedStart program, a SaaS offering for companies who want to deploy federal government-facing software. Scale AI, the AI giant that provides training data to industry leaders like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, signed a deal with the Department of Defense in March for a first-of-its-kind AI agent program for U.S. military planning. And since then, it's expanded its business to world governments, recently inking a five-year deal with Qatar to provide automation tools for civil service, healthcare, transportation, and more.
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The ECB Lowered Interest Rates Again. Trump Has Pushed the Fed to Do the Same
The European Central Bank lowered interest rates Thursday, the eighth time it has done so over the past year. President Donald Trump recently criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for not following the ECB's lead on cutting rates. The ECB said its future decisions could be affected by the heightened uncertainty of the current tariff European Central Bank cut interest rates Thursday, putting the body further ahead of its U.S. counterpart in moving toward a less restrictive monetary policy—likely to the chagrin of President Donald Trump. The ECB's willingness to lower rates (it's done so at eight consecutive meetings over the past year) differs from the Federal Reserve, which has held U.S. rates steady this year in an attempt to drive down inflation to a 2% annual rate. This has drawn criticism from Trump, who wants Powell to cut interest rates to lower borrowing costs and boost economic growth and job creation to avoid a downturn. On Wednesday, the ADP's survey of job creation found that pirate employers added 37,000 jobs in May, well below the 110,000 forecasters had expected. Trump took to Truth Social, posting, "ADP NUMBER OUT!!! 'Too Late' Powell must now LOWER THE RATE. He is unbelievable!!! Europe has lowered NINE TIMES!" Trump's tariff policy could be making it more likely the Fed holds back from cutting rates, however, due to concern that import taxes could reignite high inflation in the U.S. Meanwhile, European central bankers have been more concerned that the trade tensions with the U.S. could slow their countries' economies. The ECB said an escalation of tariffs would limit growth and inflation, while a 'benign' resolution to the trade disputes would likely lead to growth and may spur higher inflation. Inflation in the euro area is currently near the ECB Governing Council's 2% medium-term target. For now, the decision to lower rates 'should make the economy more resilient to global shocks,' the ECB said. Read the original article on Investopedia Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
ECB signals a summer pause after latest rate cut
-- The European Central Bank cut interest rates by 25 basis points on Thursday but signalled that further easing is unlikely before the autumn. According to ING, 'comments from the ECB's press conference suggest Board members are in no hurry to cut rates again at the July meeting – unless there is a new escalation of trade tensions.' ECB President Christine Lagarde emphasised a cautious approach, suggesting that the central bank would 'stick to a wait-and-see approach over the summer.' ING noted the ECB sees the recent disinflation as 'mainly transitory due to energy prices and the stronger euro.' Still, ING believes 'today's rate cut [is not] the last one this year,' and expects another reduction in September. The longer-term picture remains mixed. ING reported that the ECB maintains 'a more optimistic longer-term picture for growth on the back of German fiscal stimulus and European intentions to step up defence spending.' However, a cooling labour market and signs of disinflation 'should provide enough room for at least one more rate cut after the summer.' Wells Fargo echoed this view, stating: 'We expect a pause from the ECB at its July meeting and a 25 bps rate cut by the ECB in September.' The bank sees risks tilted toward 'a more pronounced easing cycle,' but added there is 'not yet… compelling enough evidence for the ECB to hasten or add to its rate cut cycle.' Macquarie analysts were more sceptical, arguing that 'further rate cuts may be hard to justify.' Related articles ECB signals a summer pause after latest rate cut Trump unlikely to drive down drug prices substantially: Capital Economics Citadel's Griffin: cost of U.S. default insurance is "unfathomable" Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
