AeroVironment, a global leader in multi-domain defence solutions, announced the release of Halo_Shield, a modular, distributed, and cost-effective counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) designed to predict, detect, track, identify and defeat advanced airborne threats including Group 1–5 UAS, coordinated drone swarms, and subsonic cruise missiles, protecting critical infrastructure and deployed forces worldwide. AV announced Modern Day Marine on April 28 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Developed as part of AV’s holistically integrated C-UAS strategy, Halo_Shield introduces a unique, tile-based layered defense architecture that is open, scalable, and adaptable to today’s evolving threats. The system is designed to support emerging homeland defense priorities by enabling resilient, area-wide protection of high-value U.S. and allied partner assets, including borders, military installations, and other critical infrastructure. AV is currently demonstrating capabilities and has deployed Halo_Shield tiles at select critical sites.

“The character of the air threat has fundamentally changed,” said Wahid Nawabi, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer at AV. “Cheap, massed, and coordinated aerial systems are stressing traditional point defenses. Halo_Shield is our answer—a collaborative, modular approach that brings together the best of AV and a trusted supplier ecosystem to close those gaps.”

At the core of Halo_Shield is a mission-tailored, distributed and domain-specific tile architecture comprising Sentinel, Terrestrial, Nautical, Aerial and Celestial tiles. Each tile delivers a specialized combination of sensors, effectors, and command-and-control capabilities, drawing on technology from AV and its trusted ecosystem of suppliers. The result is a cost-efficient defense architecture that is offense-ready, extends protection beyond point defense and sustains decisive situational advantage in contested battlespaces across air, land, sea and space.

Designed for plug-and-play integration, Halo_Shield is deployable as portable fly-away kits and integrates seamlessly with existing customer sensors, effectors, and command-and-control frameworks delivering scalable, resilient, area-wide protection with minimal training and personnel demands. Powered by AV_Halo™, AV’s unified software platform, the system is purpose-built yet agnostic, designed to incorporate new capabilities while seamlessly integrating with customers’ existing command-and-control systems.

“Halo_Shield is engineered like an edge processing-capable set of tiles for modern air defense,” said Larry Lloyd, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at AV. “Each tile is a self-contained capability that can operate on its own or snap together to build exactly the defense architecture a mission demands. That modularity lets operators scale, adapt, and reconfigure in real time as threats evolve, without redesigning the system or retraining the force. It’s how you move from static point defense to a living, mission-tailored shield.”

The unique tile-based architecture integrates a tailored mix of sensors and effectors from AV and its trusted partners, unified by an overarching battle manager. It includes systems such as AV’s LOCUST® laser weapon system, Switchblade® loitering munitions, and Titan® 4 and Titan MS RF C-UAS systems, among others.

With AV_Halo™ COMMAND, each tile can operate independently or be rapidly combined to extend detection ranges, accelerate the kill chain, and expand coverage across large geographic areas for preferential engagement.

Halo_Shield is a game-changing architecture:

• Affordably extending defensive protection beyond traditional C-UAS point defense
• Optimizing sensors and effectors placement to maximize mission effectiveness
• Maximizing the system’s weapons carrying capacity to address all threat scenarios
• Disaggregating the C-UAS mitigation cycle at the tile level to simplify higher echelon command and control (C2) workload
• Integrating left of launch with offensive delivery to thwart threats prior to attack

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