Keeping pace with the ever-evolving drone threat

It’s easy to think of military drones as a completely modern phenomenon, but the truth is that unmanned aerial vehicles have been used in conflicts for close to two centuries. In 1849, the Austrian army came up with the novel idea of using paper balloons to drop bombs on the under-siege city of Venice. Radio-controlled aeroplanes were later used to down Zeppelins in World War I, while remote reconnaissance craft flew the skies over the Vietnam War. Today, advanced drones are influencing the course of the war in Ukraine.

What’s remained consistent across the history of drone warfare is that technologies and battle tactics have constantly evolved. As new civilian and military technologies have emerged, drone manufacturers have incorporated them to make more efficient, agile and often lethal designs. To successfully defend against drones, counter UAV approaches need to be just as agile and capable of evolution.

Saab understands this. Our new C-UAS solution, Nimbrix, is based around a high-precision, short-range mini-missile that is both agile and relatively affordable to produce. While no one can predict the future, Nimbrix is designed to both address the current drone threat and to adapt and grow to address new threats as they emerge.

So, what are some of the trends in drone warfare that we are likely to see in coming years? And how do Nimbrix’s characteristics prepare it to meet them?   

Huge numbers of drones

You can bank on the fact that future conflicts will see large numbers of drones used simultaneously. Compared to aircraft, armoured vehicles or even short-range missiles, both weaponised and surveillance drones are extremely cheap. In the Ukraine conflict, easy access to UAV components and ease of manufacture has seen both sides of employing drones in their hundreds of thousands. In 2025, Ukraine increased its manufacturing capacity to 4.5 million UAVS a year, with plans for further increases in 2026. A common strategy now being used by the Russians in the conflict has been to send large numbers of cheap drones at Ukrainian targets to exhaust missile stocks. Once these are depleted, more sophisticated drones follow and have an easier time of penetrating weakened defences.

As the cost of drone production continues to fall, saturation campaigns involving thousands of drones descending on targets at once are highly likely in future conflicts. In Ukraine, fixed wing UAVs are even being used as ‘motherships’ to deliver payloads of multiple smaller first-person view drones close to targets.

Nimbrix’s reason for being is add to existing air defence by neutralising large numbers of drones in an effective and affordable manner. A small battery of nine or twelve missiles can decimate a small drone swarm at a distance of 2000 metres in a matter of seconds. While VHSORAD missiles are also highly effective against UAVs, spending multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars to down a drone that might only cost a few thousand dollars to build is unsustainable from a financial and supply chain perspective. Nimbrix is sustainable financially and in terms of supply chain well into the future. 

Smarter, self-reliant and unjammable UAVs

As the conflict in Ukraine has progressed, drones have undergone extremely rapid evolution, becoming smarter and more deadly. Initially used primarily for reconnaissance, FPV drones were quickly adapted for precision strikes on troops, vehicles and other assets. Airborne and waterborne drones have destroyed major targets at great distances. Further evolution has occurred around guidance. With jammers temporarily proving an effective way to disrupt communication between pilots and FPV drones, designs have pivoted to include UAVs controlled via long, spiderweb-like fibre optic cables. In the future, drones are likely to become increasingly automated, with the need for a first-person controllers significantly reduced for the majority of their missions. This will potentially render jammers completely useless.

Unlike jammers, Nimbrix’s guidance system and hard-kill capability is unlikely to be disrupted by advances in automation. Its warhead is designed to completely obliterate targeted drones, putting an immediate end to the threat they pose. For the first generation Nimbrix missile, an infrared seeker is used, but future Nimbrix generations are likely to evolve to include radar seekers for even greater accuracy. Nimbrix’s kill range will also evolve, with future iterations potentially able to destroy drones at distances of up to 5000 metres.

Simple to use, easy to transport

The simplicity of Nimbrix’s hard kill approach means that it is likely to prove useful even as new C-UAS technologies like electromagnetic pulse weapons and focused-energy weapons begin to emerge on the battlefield. While, both these advances currently require significant power sources, Nimbrix is agile and has minimal power requirements. Unlike focused-energy weapons, Nimbrix is suitable for use in all weather conditions: rain or shine.

First-generation Nimbrix missiles weighs less than 3 kilograms and measure less than 1 metre long, making them a highly agile and transportable C-UAS option. The affordability and high transportability of Nimbrix also means that it can be widely distributed among deployed troops, giving each squad their own drone defence capability. The system is easy to learn and operate, and the small size of the missiles and cassettes makes it relatively simple to convey to the front line.

In summary, while the future is fluid, smart armed forces can today make educated guesses about the way drone technology will evolve. Including Nimbrix in your armoury is a way of ensuring you are prepared for the large numbers of increasingly intelligent drones that are almost certain to feature on tomorrow’s battlefields.