Pretoria-based defence engineering company Centauri Technologies has announced that the counter uncrewed aerial system (C-UAS), more popularly known as an anti-drone system, that it has developed, has successfully concluded integrated and multi-layered trials, in its vehicle-mounted form. Designated as the TriAD C-UAS system, it was first put on public show at the IDEX 2025 defence exhibition in Abu Dhabi in February.

“Our recent trials validated [our] TriAD system, which fuses radar, RF (radio frequency) and electro-optical [EO] sensors with AI decision support to detect, prioritise and defeat hostile drones in real time with multiple hard-kill effectors [weapons],” highlighted Centauri chief product officer Xander Louw. “[W]e’ve refined the TriAD system’s capabilities, leading to the extensive series of controlled proof-of-concept trials. These are designed to demonstrate end-to-end detection, tracking, identification and defeat of small [UAS] from one interoperable system.”

The TriAD system combines radar, RF, EO and infrared (IR) systems with weapons mounted on remotely-operated weapons systems (ROWS). The trials established that the combination of 360° radar tracking with RF detection and EO/IR tracking significantly cut the number of erroneous identifications (“false positives”) and so allowed rapid identification of drones and quick and confident take down/shoot down decisions. This process was supported by the system’s decision-support algorithm, which ranked multiple simultaneous contacts.

“This in effect means the Command-and-Control System fuses radar, RF and optical tracks into a single tactical picture, which feeds AI-based classifiers,” he explained. In this manner, threats are prioritised and the operator gets recommendations for an optimal effector, i.e. which weapon to use.”

The system had a human-machine interface which allowed the operator to quickly switch between the sensor feeds. It also allowed one-click selection of the recommended weapons, or the implementation of manual override.

TriAD was designed to be agnostic, regarding the sensors employed. The ROWS were, however, Centauri’s own proprietary products. There were three ROWS in the current system, namely the CRx-7, which mounted a 7.62 mm light machine gun; the CRx-30, with a 30x113 mm cannon; and the CRx-40, which was a six-shot 40 mm grenade launcher. This array allowed different types of drones to be engaged at different ranges. However, a customer could select different mixes of sensors, and different mixes or effectors (including soft-kill systems) and different combinations of these.

The system’s architecture was such that it could be mounted on naval vessels or on static mountings at key points, as well as on vehicles.

“What remains for us to do, is acceptance testing and qualification,” reported Louw. “Centauri will soon expand the trial envelope to include [electronic warfare] resilience tests, [global navigation satellite systems] denial scenarios and longer-ranged integration with vehicle convoys.”