Danish Defence Drone Center brings companies and researchers together for FDC CORE, a Hackathon in Odense, to develop future drone solutions.

As Denmark continues to develop its capabilities to detect and respond to emerging drone threats, the ability to move promising technologies from development into operational use is becoming increasingly important.

Against this backdrop, FDC CORE brought around 80 participants from the Danish Defence, industry and research together at HCA Airport in Odense on 26–27 August. The two-day hackathon focused on developing and testing solutions based on concrete operational needs identified by the Danish Defence.

The challenge centred on elements of a modular Counter-UAS system, including the detection and identification of unwanted drones and the creation of a common situational picture.

Rather than focusing on individual technologies in isolation, FDC CORE was structured around the integration of different capabilities. Companies, startups, researchers and operational units worked together to combine technologies and assess how they could contribute to solving a specific operational challenge.

For Eric Wanscher from the Danish Defence Drone Center, this represents an important difference from traditional testing approaches:

“Normally, when we see capabilities from the defence industry, it’s one capability we see and test. Here we integrate them all in one system, and we see how that operates.”

This integration also provides participating companies with direct insight into how their technologies need to perform in an operational defence environment.

For Runico, which develops data-fusion software for integrating sensors, payloads and drones into a unified surveillance solution, the distinction between a mature product and a defence-ready capability is significant.

As Morten Fundersmith from Runico explains:

“We maybe have a product which is 80% ready for defence. But the last 20% is quite important.”

That final stage can involve adapting technology to operational requirements, integrating it with other capabilities and testing it under realistic conditions. Direct collaboration with the end user therefore provides companies with a clearer understanding of what is required to bridge the gap between commercial technology and operational defence capability.

For Bionics System Solutions, which develops acoustic sensors for detecting and classifying drones, access to realistic testing environments is another important part of this process. The company sees collaboration with defence and other technology providers as essential to developing and validating its systems under practical conditions.

“We need partners. We need the military. We need the drones to test the system and to train the systems,” says CTO Mads Helle.

The next step for Bionics System Solutions is to move closer to extended real-world testing, with the ambition of deploying its technology at operational sites for longer periods and evaluating how it performs under practical conditions.

TRDP, which develops high-speed drone interceptors, is approaching the challenge from another part of the Counter-UAS system. For the company, participation in FDC CORE was not only about demonstrating its own technology, but also about understanding how an interceptor capability could contribute to a wider, integrated solution.

“It’s about connections and learning more about the needs that defence has – and working with colleagues to find out how to make systems together,” says CEO Mads Bent.

The experiences of the participating companies highlight a broader challenge in defence innovation: developing a capable technology is only one part of the process. Integrating that technology with other systems, understanding operational requirements and validating performance in realistic environments are equally important steps towards operational deployment.

FDC CORE illustrates an approach to defence innovation in which the focus is not solely on developing individual technologies, but on understanding how different capabilities can work together as part of a larger system.

By bringing defence, industry and research together around concrete operational challenges, the initiative aims to shorten the path from promising technology to solutions that can be tested, integrated and ultimately used in operational environments.

FDC CORE is the first in a series of activities planned in Denmark and internationally.

Read the original article by Odense Robotics here: Danish Defence Drone Center brings companies and researchers together in Odense to develop future drone solutions

Watch the full case video below: