Latvia’s LMT Defence and Thales Italia have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore how mobile telecommunications networks could be used to detect and track unmanned aerial vehicles, bringing civilian communications infrastructure into Europe’s expanding counter-drone efforts. The partnership will assess how LMT’s mobile network expertise can be combined with Thales’ defense-oriented 4G and 5G technologies to identify drones by analyzing their behavioral patterns. The proposed approach would use existing mobile communications networks as part of a detection architecture rather than depending exclusively on dedicated military sensors. The cooperation builds on the European Defence Fund-supported 5G COMPAD project, which examines the integration of commercial 5G technologies into military communications. Both companies are also participating in its follow-on initiative, 5G COMPAD 2.0. The agreement comes as European countries and NATO are increasing cooperation on counter-drone development and procurement. In November, NATO launched a marketplace intended to accelerate allied access to tested counter-drone technologies. The platform includes 16 solutions from five companies, covering systems designed for static, transportable, and mobile deployments. Earlier, in September, the Council of the European Union approved the Drone and Counter-Drone European Resolve project. The initiative aims to coordinate the development, scaling, and deployment of drone and counter-drone systems among participating countries, while supporting joint procurement and strengthening European manufacturing capacity.
