Ali Omar

As airspace threats grow more complex — from low-RCS drones and stealthy cruise missiles to electronic warfare and saturated multi-domain attacks — global armed forces are accelerating their investment in digital radars, AI-driven processing, and sovereign defence ecosystems. Thales, one of the world’s leading experts in air-surveillance technologies, is at the forefront of this transformation.

On the sidelines of Dubai Airshow 2025, SDArabia conducted an in-depth interview with Hervé Dammann, Executive Vice-President for Land and Air Systems at Thales, to explore how the company is advancing next-generation radar capabilities, integrating AI and quantum technologies, enhancing sustainability in defence systems, and supporting local industry and talent development in the region.

In this exclusive interview, Dammann outlines how the Ground Master radar family is being future-proofed for evolving threats, how drones and UAS are reshaping multi-layered air defence, and how Thales’s new radar production facility will strengthen regional sovereignty and industrial resilience.

Below is the full interview:

1. How are Thales’s newest radar technologies, especially the Ground Master family, enhancing situational awareness and countering modern threats such as low-RCS drones, cruise missiles, and electronic warfare?

The Ground Master family is designed precisely for the complexity of today’s airspace. Threats are becoming smaller, faster, and more difficult to detect, whether they are low-RCS drones flying at low altitude, sophisticated cruise missiles, or platforms using electronic warfare to mask their signatures. Our focus has been to ensure our radars stay ahead of that curve.

Our Ground Master systems, including the GM200, GM200 MM variants, and the GM400α, bring significant advances in digital processing, 3D surveillance, and clutter rejection. They offer very high sensitivity, long-range detection, and exceptional tracking accuracy, even against stealthy or highly manoeuvrable targets. They are designed to operate in contested environments, with excellent resilience against any jamming and interference.

What this delivers to our customers is clearer, earlier, and more reliable situational awareness. In practice, that means more time to assess, decide, and act on whether to defend critical infrastructure, secure borders, or protect deployed forces. We’re giving armed forces the technological edge they need in an environment where every nanosecond matters.

2. With Thales building a new radar factory to produce Ground Master radars domestically and for export, how will this investment strengthen local industry, sovereign capability, and long-term regional defence resilience?

With the new radar production facility, we are bringing advanced capabilities closer to the end user, and embedding long-term expertise, supply chains, and talent within the UAE. This aligns with the country’s defence industrial strategy to create a self-sufficient, globally competitive defence sector.

The factory will assemble, test, and qualify next-generation air-surveillance radars for both domestic use and export. But the impact goes beyond the systems themselves. We are building a sustainable ecosystem by training Emirati engineers, creating new opportunities for local suppliers, and ensuring the know-how to maintain and upgrade these radars sits within the country.

In the long run, this investment delivers multiple benefits. The UAE gains faster access to critical technologies, greater control over its defence capabilities, and a strong, future-ready industrial base that can evolve as threats and requirements change.

3. AI and quantum technologies are becoming core enablers in defence innovation; how is Thales integrating these technologies into radar processing, threat detection, and real-time data fusion?

Radar technology innovations has now entered a period in which the quality and volume of raw data have tremendously increased (> 10000). It allows to generate major operational benefits when mastering AI and quantum introduction to extract the deep quality out of this data flow.

The ongoing deployment of AI based algorithm generates significant enhancement into the radar processing chain. It provides major benefit in the classification between true and false target. In particular in various highly contested environment (highly mobile threats, slow moving targets, high clutter density, etc…) outstanding improvement have been observed with a reduction factor far above a factor of 3 in the reduction of false alarm and improvement on detection.   This allows operators to move from raw data to actionable insight in real time, even in challenging environments.

We’re also developing quantum-enhanced sensors and future processing techniques that increase sensitivity and stability. These enable radars to detect subtler signatures and maintain performance in the face of jamming or deception.

Where these technologies truly converge is in real-time multi-sensor data fusion. By combining AI-driven analytics with quantum-inspired optimisation, we’re able to fuse data from radars, infrared systems, acoustic sensors, and other inputs with speed and accuracy. The result is a coherent, real-time operational picture that supports faster, more informed decision-making.

Our approach is guided by a clear principle: technology must translate into tactical advantage. AI and quantum technologies are enabling that transformation, and Thales is ensuring they are embedded, tested, and implemented within the defence systems with safety and sovereignty.

4. How does Thales view the operational impact of integrating drones and UAS into modern multi-layered air-defense systems, and what challenges remain in achieving full interoperability?

Drones and UAS are changing air defence from something purely reactive to something much more proactive and elastic. When properly integrated, they become extra “layers” in the system, extending surveillance closer to the ground and acting as distributed sensors or effectors to pair well with systems like our Ground Master family, among other solutions.

But the real value comes when all of this is networked. We prioritise open, modular architectures and secure data links so that manned assets, ground-based air defence, and multiple types of drones can operate as one coherent system-of-systems.

The remaining challenges are less about technology alone and more about interoperability: shared standards, spectrum management, cyber resilience, and doctrine and training that keep humans firmly in control in a much more automated battlespace.

5. Sustainable defence and aviation are rising priorities worldwide; what steps is Thales taking toward energy-efficient, low-carbon digital radar and surveillance systems?

Sustainability has long become a defining priority for aviation. We’re developing technologies that make flying cleaner without compromising safety or efficiency. Air traffic is growing rapidly, new forms of air mobility are emerging, and the sector is committed to reaching net-zero by 2050. Our role is to help accelerate that transition. We’re enabling aircraft to fly more efficient trajectories, reduce fuel burn, and cut delays with smarter air-traffic-management solutions, more resilient navigation and surveillance systems, and advanced UAS traffic control. By 2030, these innovations could help the sector reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 10%, which is a meaningful step in creating more sustainable skies.

On the defence side, sustainability is embedded into how we design the next generation of radar and surveillance systems. We’re developing lighter, more energy-efficient digital radars with lower power consumption, longer service lives, and architectures that can be upgraded rather than replaced. This reduces emissions across manufacturing, operation, and maintenance.

This is how we are delivering high performance while at the same time, steadily shrinking the environmental footprint of the systems that protect nations.

6. Local industry, education, and talent development are essential to sovereign defence ecosystems — what initiatives is Thales implementing to support local skills, STEM programs, and technology transfer in the region

Across the region, we’re investing in diverse programmes that build long-term skills, transfer know-how, and create real pathways for national expertise to grow. In the UAE, our Early Careers Programme is a prominent one. It’s designed specifically for young Emirati engineers and graduates, and combines classroom training, on-the-job immersion, and mentorship from senior Thales specialists.

Complementing this is our Go to UAE initiative, which helps local suppliers reach international standards so they can be integrated within Thales’s global value chain. This is how we are supporting local companies as they mature technologically and become long-term industrial partners.

These two are just a few out of our many initiatives that strongly focuses on building the skills and confidence needed for countries to sustain and grow their own sovereign defence ecosystems.

7. As radar threats evolve rapidly, how is Thales future-proofing the Ground Master series to ensure continuous upgradeability, digital adaptability, and long-term relevance for military operators?

Future-proofing is built into the DNA of the Ground Master family. Modern airspace is evolving too quickly for static systems, so we design our radars as fully digital, software-defined platforms that can be upgraded throughout their lifecycle. This means new algorithms, new waveforms, and new detection capabilities can be added without replacing the core hardware.

A big focus here is modularity. Operators can scale performance, integrate new counter-UAS functions, or tackle jamming simply through software and processing upgrades. The latest variants also have significantly more onboard computing power, which allows us to introduce AI-enabled processing and advanced data fusion as those technologies mature.