The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is developing anti-drone systems in partnership with international companies and the International Association for Combating Drones.
Can our country become a leader in production and how will young students be trained for development in this field?
Bulgarian scientists from the Institute for Space Research and Technology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences have been working on their own inventions in the field of security for years. And according to experts, now is the time for production to begin.
“Everyone sees the danger of drones, how they are becoming the new standard in the field of armament and security. In Bulgaria, there was an incident recently at Sofia Airport. They closed the airport for flights. So this danger is already appearing in Bulgaria,” said Assoc. Prof. Ognyan Ognyanov, Institute for Space Research and Technology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
“Our institute is the project leader for the development of an anti-drone system under the National Scientific Program “Security and Defense,” explained Prof. Dr. Georgi Sotirov, Aerospace Control Systems at the Institute of Space Research and Technology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
“The experience of the war in Ukraine and in the global context shows that these systems will increasingly improve and will bring greater opportunities for detecting, tracking and feeding drones,” explained Prof. Dr. Georgi Sotirov.
The technology can detect the presence of a drone in seconds at a distance of up to 10 km. And according to Professor Sotirov, the means and methods of protection against drones must be improved every 4 to 6 months due to the rapid development of technologies. That is why work is already underway to introduce an anti-drone specialty in universities in our country.
“The Technical University of Sofia is the first. With them, we created the first subject on anti-drone systems. The first manual is being created, which is for the protection of critical infrastructure, and anti-drone systems are most vividly described there as means of protection from the future. We want to revive this industry again, to create personnel who can work and build new innovative systems with which Bulgaria can once again be a factor,” said Stayko Topalov, president of the World Association for Anti-drone Systems.
And the most important thing is that they be tailored to the needs of the sites that will be protected.
“The airports themselves should be consulted on what is most appropriate – for each terrain there is a different anti-drone system that is most applicable,” Topalov added.
In order to see Bulgarian defense products on the market, greater support from the state is needed, but according to our scientists, the funds allocated for science are still far from sufficient.