At Eurosatory 2026, Rohde & Schwarz provided further details of their new THORIS (Tactical High-Energy Opponent Response & Interception System) counter-unmanned aerial vehicle (C-UAV) system, along with their NEMACS (Networked Multipoint Array Communications System), and explained some of the key developments that lie ahead.

THORIS

First unveiled at the ILA 2026 exhibition in Berlin, THORIS is Rohde & Schwarz’ successor to the ARDRONIS C-UAV suite previously offered. It includes some of the sensors and effectors which had previously formed part of ARDRONIS, such as Rohde & Schwarz’s range of direction finders (DFs), multi-band jammer, Wi-Fi-band and cellular electronic intelligence (ELINT) solutions. However, THORIS expands the range of available options to include an optoelectronic sensor, acoustic sensors, and a high-energy laser (HEL) effector.

Speaking to Warsight, Bernd Nagelrauf, Product Manager for C-UAS Systems at Rohde & Schwarz, explained “ARDRONIS is now THORIS, and the special thing about the THORIS system, it’s totally agnostic, towards the effector side, and even the platform.”

According to Nagelrauf, THORIS was suited for mounting on light 4×4 vehicle platforms and upwards, with other options including containers, small vessels, or fixed to buildings for the critical infrastructure protection role. Nagelrauf added, “the main three use cases we’re focusing with this THORIS system [are] critical infrastructure [protection], law enforcement, and defence [of] forces.”

Among the advantages of this kind of open-architecture setup, according to Nagelrauf, is the possibility of tailoring the suite to differing use cases, for instance, “if a customer from a law enforcement agency orders a system and he wants the radar, of course, he can get the radar solution as well, especially when we’re talking about certain drones that are ‘dark drones’, radar would be very effective.”

The term ‘dark drones’ refers to the category of drones that are effectively ‘dark’ to the radio frequency (RF) spectrum. This category would typically include fibre-optic and artificial intelligence (AI) guided drones, neither of which need to emit any RF signals, and cannot therefore be detected by common methods such as DFs or ELINT equipment. As such, other methods, such as radar, optoelectronic, or acoustic sensors would be necessary to detect these kinds of drones.

Perhaps most notable among the new effectors being developed for THORIS is the new HEL effector being developed by Trumpf lasers, a German company specialising in industrial lasers, and now moving into the HEL weapon sphere, in cooperation with Rohde & Schwarz. This has been named the THORIS LCS (Laser Combat System).

Nagelrauf said “one of [Trumpf’s] key competencies is that they can focus the laser beam very exactly, so we hope to be able to build a laser that uses less power than a comparable laser for the same effect,” adding that the HEL weapon being aimed for would be a continuous wave type, with a “very short dwell time” of “less than five seconds”. Nagelrauf declined to give further specifics on the weapon’s intended power output and envisioned range performance.

Regarding when the laser would be ready to be offered as part of THORIS, Nagelrauf said, “the whole [Thoris] system as a solution would be, if everything goes well, we’re talking about mid-2028.” While this does not address the laser individually, Rohde & Schwarz explained that this would include the entire THORIS package becoming available, including the laser and an in-development radar.

The company stressed that all elements previously available under ARDRONIS were available for THORIS immediately. Nagelrauf added, “For the C2 software, there has to be some work that has to be done to have it in an operational state for the whole system, but you can use parts of the C2 software for the existing elements right now.”

NEMACS

Also first unveiled at ILA 2026, NEMACS represents Rohde & Schwarz’ move to develop long-range, high-bitrate, low-probability of intercept [LPI] and low-probability of detection [LPD] communications for air-to-air and ground-to-air (or vice versa), and ground-to-ground roles.

NEMACS can be thought of as being akin to a very small active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, capable of forming very narrow beams for point-to-point communications, data exchange, and more.

Warsight spoke to Benjamin Sepp, Regional Sales Manager Security Europe, at Rohde & Schwarz, for an overview of NEMACS’ capabilities. “It’s a communication panel. We have several sizes of this….and it’s for directed communications. We tested it [at] 400 kilometres ground-to-air, [at] 10 megabits per second, and it’s nearly non-jammable. It works in the Ku-band, so it’s around 14 gigahertz.” Sepp explained, adding, “typically all SIGINT [signals intelligence] and EW [electronic warfare] solutions are working [at] 6 gigahertz and below, but Rohde & Schwarz is 8 gigahertz and above.”

Sepp confirmed that each NEMACS panel was capable of multi-beam forming, and in terms of the panel’s field of regard, Sepp said, “to be precise, it should be 120°.”

In terms of its security, Sepp explained that NEMACS is “nearly non-jammable, because it’s directed, under high frequency. This gives us the possibility that we can ensure it, and we have on top the security levels of our ELCRODAT, and so on, our security solutions to encrypt it up to NATO Secret and above, so that you are fully compliant.”

Regarding the readiness level of the technology, Sepp explained “We developed this for FCAS [Future Combat Air System], so it’s already matured. It has a certain level,” adding, “it’s called multi-directed communications, and so therefore to ensure the combinations, and having several, let’s say, paths, so it means you can use the tactical radius and have a complete combined network. This is the basic idea for this.”

While the FCAS programme is dead, a Rohde & Schwarz spokesperson noted that there were other use cases envisioned, in no small part due to the rise of collaborative combat aircraft (CCA).

The spokesperson noted, “if you look at the next-generation weapon system as it is right now, and as they had it conceptualised, the Eurofighter is going to be with us until 2037 at least, and the Eurofighter is definitely going to fly with unmanned assets or CCAs, so you have that scenario, and in that scenario you do need LPI, you need LPD, you need all that for the pilot to stay in the back, basically, have the uncrewed assets in the front, and basically put the pilot out of harm’s away, and so [NEMACS] is already this today.”

“It’s scalable, so you can have it on ships, you can have it on vehicles,” the spokesperson said, and even smaller versions have also been displayed by the company, but Rohde & Schwarz representatives elected to keep quiet about those for the time being.

The earlier comparison to AESA is not hyperbole, because the exact same technology used for communication by NEMACS could in theory be used for detection and tracking – indeed, is necessary for the use cases air-to-air and air-to-ground roles envisioned for NEMACS.

Rohde & Schwarz, were understandably shy about revealing this aspect of NEMACS’ capabilities, but Warsight made the case that in order to establish communications with a moving vehicle such as an aircraft, there would need to be some way for NEMACS to know what it was pointing toward. At this, Sepp admitted “there’s a kind of search [capability] for it, yes,” adding, “this is, let’s say mandatory, that you have this opening [of] the beam, and then narrow down.”

All told, NEMACS is an interesting piece of technology that looks to be positioned as a solution to the problem of how forces can remain networked while operating within range of hostile ELINT capabilities. Numerous companies have been looking for ways to tackle this problem, and some of the recent solutions Warsight has seen displayed have gone into fairly exotic territory, such as free-space laser communication. Yet what is perhaps most interesting about NEMACS specifically, is the potential for multifunctionality. After all, a Ku-band AESA radar panel could potentially be used for more than just communication.