Thales has announced that its Toutatis loitering munition will be ready for operational deployment by 2025. Designed to neutralize light armored vehicles, Toutatis is built to withstand radio jamming and navigate effectively in environments with compromised GNSS signals.
France’s response to the emergence of loitering munitions
in May 2022, in light of the effective use of loitering munitions, colloquially known as kamikaze drones, in recent conflicts such as the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, France’s Agence de l’Innovation de Défense (AID) and Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA) issued two calls for solutions to promote the development of domestic loitering munition systems.
One such initiative, the Colibri program, focused on creating autonomous systems to neutralize light armored vehicles with minimal operator intervention. Key requirements for Colibri included precision targeting, transportability and robust resistance to electronic warfare. By 2023, AID had selected proposals from two partnerships for the Colibri program: MBDA with Novadem, and KNDS France with Delair.
Thales’ independent investment in Toutatis development
Despite being excluded from the Colibri program, Thales has also made independent investments in loitering munition development with the Toutatis project, a partnership with the French drone maker Aeromapper.
“Thales has been independently developing its short-range tele-operated munition, TOUTATIS, dedicated to high-intensity combat for over 2 years,” the company shared in a LinkedIn statement. “Fully French and thus contributing to the reconquest of sovereignty in this segment, it will be operational by 2025.”
Toutatis performance and specifications
Toutatis is a compact and easily deployable system that can be launched from ground vehicles, tubes, helicopters or drones. It can be deployed in under two minutes and offers 45 minutes of autonomy, with an effective range of up to 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). This performance exceeds Colibri’s requirements of 30 minutes of autonomy and a range of five kilometers (three miles).
Equipped with Thales’ VisioLoc technology, originally designed for handheld target locators, the munition is resilient against electronic interference, including GPS jamming. With a maximum attack speed of 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour and a one-kilogram warhead, Toutatis is optimized for engaging light-armored targets.
In addition to the capabilities of Toutatis, Thales is also advancing other drone solutions. On October 16, 2024, the French manufacturer demonstrated advanced AI-driven drone swarm capabilities. These swarms facilitate real-time mission management, easing the cognitive load on human operators and enhancing situational awareness and target acquisition efficiency.