Milton's Sky Keeper UAV with a Rohde & Schwarz SIGINT payload consisting of a UMS400 and an ADD507 antenna. (Rohde & Schwarz)
Milton's Sky Keeper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was unveiled with a Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) signals intelligence (SIGINT) payload at the SOFINS 2025 defence exhibition being held at Camp de Souge in Gironde, France, from 1 to 3 April. The payload consists of a UMS400 universal monitoring system with an ADD507 antenna and uses R&S's Ceptor software.
CEPTOR provides a real-time picture of the electromagnetic spectrum and catalogues emissions between 8 kHz and 8 GHz in combination with R&S's PR200 portable monitoring receiver or UMS400. Spectrum managers can import existing transmitter lists to pre-populate the database and automatically differentiate friendly from enemy and unclassified emitters. In addition, users can configure automatic workflows in CEPTOR for classification, demodulation, and direction-finding when a signal of interest appears.
CEPTOR catalogues every emission in its search bands so an operator can easily see when an emitter is on and for how long, helping determine what information an enemy can see, according to R&S.
For example, in an urban environment, a Milton UAV equipped with a SIGINT payload can pinpoint the origin of suspicious communications and provide this information to field units for targeting. On a battlefield, it can detect jammers or electromagnetic warfare devices, allowing forces to adapt their strategy accordingly.
For more information on another application for Milton UAVs, please seeEuronaval 2024: Lacroix conceptualises drone-based ship soft-kill defence .
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