Interview: Safran defense boss on the changing battlefield and AI

PARIS — Safran Electronics & Defense CEO Franck Saudo spoke to Defense News at the Paris Air Show last week about the changing battlefield and use of AI, as well as areas of future growth. Safran is Europe’s biggest supplier of military optronics and inertial navigation systems.

Saudo noted two mega trends in defense, one being rising defense budgets with a new emphasis on European sovereignty, and the second the transformation of the battlefield, including greater battlefield transparency, widespread electronic warfare and new objects such as drones.

On the changing battlefield

Syria “really was the conflict where we saw GNSS-denied environment and contested electromagnetic spectrum, for communication or GPS access,” while Nagorno-Karabach “was a swarm of drones. And I would say Ukraine is the fusion of both conflicts, adding the return of the war of attrition, which is really particular to Ukraine.”

One element of the transformation “definitely is the transparency of the battlefield, between the sensors on the ground, in the air, in space, doubled by open-source data from social networks.”

Franck Saudo (L), then the CEO of Safran Helicopter Engines, is pictured in Bangalore, India, in July 2022. Saudo was appointed CEO of the company's Electronics and Defence unit in April 2023. (Manjunath Kiran/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is really what I would say a transformation of the defense demand. On the battlefield, out of the transformation of the battlefield, we have new objects appearing. Drones are one of them, loitering munitions. They require a different trade-off between technology and needs, and cost efficiency.”

“Does it mean big programs are off the table? Of course not. Look at the U.S. NGAD Next-Generation Air Dominance, look at the CCA Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Look at the Golden Dome. We are not saying at all that big programs of record are off the table, but what we are saying, alongside we have an evolution of defense demand.”

The transformed battlefield requires reinforced protection of existing assets such as tanks, combat vehicles or frigates, for example by adding counter-UAS capability.

Saudo cited frigates in the Red Sea that were initially firing missiles to counter Houthi drones: “Efficient, but not cost efficient.” Safran equipped French frigates with a Paseo XLR electro-optical sensor to see drone threats at 40 kilometers away, allowing early identification and giving frigates the cheaper option of using their 76 mm cannon rather than a missile.

“Reinforcing the protection of existing elements, and alongside, capacity, building mass and what I would call new defense, meaning objects with a different trade-off in terms of technology and needs and cost efficiency. This is a transformation of the defense demand.”

On supply-side transformation

“We also see a transformation of the supply side with new players, be it startups or commercial players, but also existing players, where to play in the new defense arena it’s all about agility, innovation, shortened cycles, being able to do incremental innovation.”

Safran took four weeks to implement PASEO XRL on the French frigates, developed its Skyjacker counter-UAS system based on GNSS spoofing in six months, and in Ukraine integrated the AASM Hammer precision-guided munition on Soviet-era MiG-29 and Su-25 aircraft in four months. “That’s indeed agility, innovation, which is part of what is required today.”

“When I talk about new defense, agility, innovation, part of it is also market players taking risks.” Saudo said Safran has self-financing products including drones, loitering munitions and infrared binoculars, even as he repeated that programs of record will continue.

“In the current environment, you need financially to be able to invest. The defense market is moving fast, and it’s in transformation. It’s about tech and industry: tech innovation, agility, industry capacity to scale up production.

On defense AI and data

The company’s artificial-intelligence unit employs 250 people, “the biggest defense and security pool of AI professionals in Europe for production AI. Many people are talking about developing AI, research AI. This is not the business of Safran.AI. It’s in production, at the heart of real, combat-proven missions.”

Safran in September acquired Preligens, now Safran.AI, which uses AI to analyze images, video and acoustic signals to identify objects of military interest. Saudo said several armed forces around the world use Safran’s AI products for surveillance and detection.

“What we stand for is an open architecture, meaning capacity for the AI solutions of Safran to be agnostic to sensors and harbor data coming from different sensors. Safran is an equipment manufacturer, so our DNA is at equipment level, and being open to work with the different players.”

“We are really where the mission requires. Part of it is edge AI, so we already have edge-AI solutions for full motion video.” Saudo said the company’s Euroflir 410 electro-optical system or a PASEO sight can typically use edge AI for data treatment.

“It’s also an embarked data hub, a concentrator of data close to the battlefield, which is a second piece. It can be on a frigate, concentrating the different data sources, or on the battlefield, concentrating different sensors.”

“Safran is just an enabler for the armed forces, and then it is for them to decide at which echelon the information sort of circles back, knowing that the beauty of data is it can go in many directions. So you can have sort of short loops, but also longer loops with different level of analysis.”

“What we know out of Ukraine is the importance of decentralizing the decisions. If the armed forces decentralize the action, it requires different level of data concentration and making sense of the data. We do not believe in one size fits all, where all the data goes from the battlefield to a satellite to another satellite, and then down to a big sort of center.”

“It’s for the tacticians to decide the way they operate. All we do is we provide enablers, and because our AI architectures are open, because we have this capacity to have both Edge AI and embarked data hub, we then provide optionality for the armed forces, which enables decentralization where they wish.”

Saudo sees growth opportunities in Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance, with AI-enhanced ISTAR core for Safran “because it’s at the junction of electro-optical and AI.”

A second area of growth is resilient or assured position, navigation and timing. “How do you make sure that thanks to the combination of inertial navigation, GNSS, etc, you are immune to spoofing, to jamming, be it for your munitions, be it for your vehicles, be it for your high-value assets?”

Further growth areas are precision-guided munitions, including the Hammer air-launched weapon and missile seekers, as well as drones and loitering munitions, where Safran produces the Lanner 50-kilogram drone and Warbler loitering munition.

“I would add AI solutions as a stand-alone, because we both embed our AI solutions, edge AI and embarked data hub, but we also provide the Safran.AI open architectures for use to integrators to include as a building block in their suites.”

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

巴黎——上周，赛峰电子与防务公司首席执行官弗兰克·索多在巴黎航展上接受《防务新闻》采访时，谈到了不断变化的战场环境、人工智能的应用以及未来的增长领域。赛峰是欧洲最大的军用光电和惯性导航系统供应商。

萨乌多指出国防领域有两个大趋势，一是国防预算不断增长，更加重视欧洲主权；二是战场格局发生转变，包括战场透明度提高、电子战广泛应用以及无人机等新型武器的出现。

在不断变化的战场上

叙利亚冲突“真正展现了全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）受限环境和争夺通信或全球定位系统（GPS）接入的电磁频谱”，而纳戈尔诺-卡拉巴赫冲突“则是无人机群的交锋”。我认为乌克兰冲突是这两场冲突的融合，再加上消耗战的回归，这在乌克兰是特有的。

变革的一个要素“无疑是战场的透明度，地面、空中、太空的传感器之间的透明度，再加上来自社交网络的开源数据，使得这种透明度成倍增长。”

图为时任赛峰直升机发动机公司首席执行官弗兰克·萨乌多（左）于2022年7月在印度班加罗尔拍摄。萨乌多于2023年4月被任命为该公司电子与国防部门首席执行官。（Manjunath Kiran/AFP via Getty Images）

“这实际上可以说是国防需求的转变。在战场上，随着战场格局的转变，出现了新的作战对象。无人机和巡飞弹就是其中之一。它们需要在技术需求和成本效益之间做出不同的权衡。”

“这是否意味着大型项目都被搁置了？当然不是。看看美国的下一代空中优势计划（NGAD），看看协同作战飞机计划（CCA），看看金穹顶计划。我们完全没有说已经列入计划的大型项目都被搁置了，我们想说的是，与此同时，国防需求也在不断演变。”

变化后的战场需要加强对现有资产（如坦克、战车或护卫舰）的保护，例如增加反无人机系统能力。

萨乌多举例说，红海的护卫舰最初使用导弹对抗胡塞武装的无人机：“虽然有效，但成本效益不高。” 赛峰集团为法国护卫舰配备了Paseo XLR光电传感器，可在40公里外探测无人机威胁，从而实现早期识别，并使护卫舰能够以更经济的方式使用76毫米舰炮而非导弹。

“加强对现有要素的保护，同时提升能力、建设规模，以及我所谓的新型防御体系，这意味着在技术、需求和成本效益方面需要做出不同权衡的防御项目。这是国防需求的转变。”

关于供给侧转型

“我们还看到供应方正在发生转变，涌现出新的参与者，无论是初创企业还是商业企业，以及现有企业。在新国防领域，一切都取决于敏捷性、创新能力、缩短周期以及进行渐进式创新的能力。”

赛峰集团仅用四周时间就在法国护卫舰上部署了PASEO XRL系统，六个月内开发出了基于GNSS欺骗技术的“劫机者”（Skyjacker）反无人机系统，并在四个月内将AASM“铁锤”（Hammer）精确制导武器集成到乌克兰的苏联时代米格-29和苏-25战斗机上。“这的确体现了敏捷性和创新性，而这正是当今所需要的。”

“当我谈到新型国防、敏捷性和创新时，其中一部分也包括市场参与者承担风险。”萨乌多表示，赛峰集团拥有包括无人机、巡飞弹和红外双筒望远镜在内的自筹资金产品，同时他也重申，已列入计划的项目将继续进行。

“在当前环境下，你需要有足够的资金才能进行投资。国防市场发展迅速，正处于转型期。它关乎技术和产业：技术创新、敏捷性以及产业扩大生产规模的能力。”

关于国防人工智能和数据

该公司的人工智能部门拥有250名员工，“是欧洲最大的国防和安全领域人工智能专业人才库，专注于生产型人工智能。很多人都在谈论人工智能的开发和研究，但这并非赛峰人工智能的业务重点。我们的业务是生产型人工智能，是真正经受过实战考验的任务的核心。”

赛峰集团于9月收购了Preligens公司，该公司现已更名为Safran.AI，利用人工智能技术分析图像、视频和声学信号，以识别军事目标。Saudo表示，世界各地多支军队都在使用赛峰集团的人工智能产品进行监视和侦察。

“我们所倡导的是开放式架构，这意味着赛峰集团的人工智能解决方案能够兼容各种传感器，并能整合来自不同传感器的数据。赛峰集团是一家设备制造商，因此我们的基因在于设备层面，并且我们乐于与不同的合作伙伴携手共进。”

“我们完全符合任务要求。其中一部分是边缘人工智能，我们已经拥有用于全动态视频的边缘人工智能解决方案。” Saudo 表示，公司的 Euroflir 410 光电系统或 PASEO 瞄准器通常可以使用边缘人工智能进行数据处理。

“它也是一个舰载数据中心，一个靠近战场的集中器，这是第二个组成部分。它可以部署在护卫舰上，集中不同的数据源，也可以部署在战场上，集中不同的传感器数据。”

“赛峰集团只是为军队提供支持，至于信息最终反馈到哪个层级，则由军队决定。他们也明白，数据的优势在于它可以多向流动。因此，既可以有短周期的信息循环，也可以有不同分析层次的长周期信息循环。”

“我们从乌克兰的经验中了解到，决策权下放至关重要。如果武装部队分散行动，就需要不同程度的数据集中和数据解读。我们不相信一刀切的方法，即所有数据从战场传输到卫星，再传输到另一颗卫星，最后汇聚到一个大型中央服务器。”

“具体如何作战由战术家决定。我们所做的只是提供支持，而且由于我们的人工智能架构是开放的，因为我们有能力同时拥有边缘人工智能和车载数据中心，所以我们为武装部队提供了选择余地，使他们能够在需要的地方进行去中心化部署。”

Saudo 认为，情报、监视、目标获取和侦察领域存在增长机会，而人工智能增强型 ISTAR 核心技术对 Safran 而言意义重大，“因为它处于光电和人工智能的交汇点”。

第二个增长领域是可靠的定位、导航和授时。“如何确保借助惯性导航、全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）等技术的结合，使您的弹药、车辆和高价值资产免受欺骗和干扰？”

进一步的增长领域包括精确制导武器，例如“铁锤”空射武器和导弹导引头，以及无人机和巡飞弹，其中赛峰集团生产“兰纳”50公斤无人机和“鸣禽”巡飞弹。

“我会将人工智能解决方案作为一个独立的部分来补充，因为我们不仅嵌入了我们的人工智能解决方案、边缘人工智能和车载数据中心，而且还向集成商提供 Safran.AI 开放架构，供其作为构建模块添加到他们的套件中。”

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。