Dutch radar firm Robin turns bird-spotting skills into drone defense

PARIS — Robin Radar got into drone detection in the early 2010s, when the company needed predictable targets to validate its bird-spotting radars, founder and CEO Siete Hamminga recalls.

The Dutch startup considered partnering with a pigeon club to release homing pigeons, the executive told Defense News in an interview at the DSEI UK defense show in London earlier this month.

In the end, the company turned to drones, their controlled flight allowing to validate detection – a practical move that would prove to be fortuitous. Today, drone detection accounts for a majority of Robin Radar’s revenue, with defense applications dominant, Hamminga said.

As small drones and swarms becoming a staple of modern war, “you need to be able to detect a large number of targets simultaneously,” Hamming s