Photo: Defense Post
If you've watched any of the Summer or Winter Olympic games over the last dozen or so years, chances are good you've spotted remote-powered drones flying over Olympic villages. Generally, they're little more than a nuisance to the people in their flight path. But the French Government takes this threat extremely seriously. Perhaps even a matter of national security.
In early June 2022, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces announced it would order a single prototype of a new laser-based drone neutralization system capable of sniping remote-controlled drones, potentially ones with malicious intentions, out of the sky over Paris during the 2024 Summer Olympics. Dubbed the HELMA-P, it's due to debut at that year's event.
"The HELMA-P system provides a calibrated response to the drone threat, from dazzling the drone's observation instruments to the neutralization of a mini or micro drone (from 100g to 25kg) by altering its structure, causing it to fall in a few seconds," the French Ministry of the Armed Forces said in a statement. The International Olympic Committee has heavily stressed that the security of each year's Olympic games, be it winter or summer, is under the jurisdiction of the host nation's local and national authorities.
Apart from a powerful chemical laser, the HELMA-P will deploy either from trailers or on top of trucks and use advanced radar sensors to identify, track down, and neutralize suspect-looking drones. French authorities are concerned these drones could be used for everything from spying, espionage, or even terrorist activity by dropping bombs.
While such a notion may sound silly to the uninformed, the everlasting legacy of the 1972 Summer Olympics massacre in Munich still weighs heavily on the minds of a Parisian police force, ever mindful of an increasingly charged geopolitical situation. Even a minute chance of disrupting the 2024 games in Paris is enough to warrant such a novel piece of police/military technology to make its global debut.
"The HELMA-P system provides a calibrated response to the drone threat, from dazzling the drone's observation instruments to the neutralization of a mini or micro drone (from 100g to 25kg) by altering its structure, causing it to fall in a few seconds," the French Ministry of the Armed Forces said in a statement. The International Olympic Committee has heavily stressed that the security of each year's Olympic games, be it winter or summer, is under the jurisdiction of the host nation's local and national authorities.
Apart from a powerful chemical laser, the HELMA-P will deploy either from trailers or on top of trucks and use advanced radar sensors to identify, track down, and neutralize suspect-looking drones. French authorities are concerned these drones could be used for everything from spying, espionage, or even terrorist activity by dropping bombs.
While such a notion may sound silly to the uninformed, the everlasting legacy of the 1972 Summer Olympics massacre in Munich still weighs heavily on the minds of a Parisian police force, ever mindful of an increasingly charged geopolitical situation. Even a minute chance of disrupting the 2024 games in Paris is enough to warrant such a novel piece of police/military technology to make its global debut.
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