Saab delivers Giraffe 1X radars to British Air Force for urgent counter-drone defense requirement.

Saab UK delivered an undisclosed quantity of Giraffe 1X 3D multi-mission radar systems to the Royal Air Force on September 2, 2026, under an urgent operational requirement. The deployment directly integrates the compact sensors into the RAF Regiment’s counter-uncrewed aerial system architecture to safeguard British and coalition assets in high-risk zones, including active operating locations across the Middle East. The procurement leverages existing technical cooperation and accelerated production pipelines to rapidly establish mobile, dispersed air defense coverage against low, slow, and small aerial threats.

The Giraffe 1X is an X-band multi-mission 3D radar system weighing under 150 kg, engineered for short-range air surveillance, ground-based air defense, and counter-UAS operations. Capable of 360-degree volume coverage updated every second, the unit detects small unmanned aerial vehicles alongside rockets, artillery, and mortar threats, while offering platform-agnostic mounting options for light vehicles, static structures, or remote masts.

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The Giraffe 1X is a compact Saab 3D radar weighing less than 150 kg that detects and tracks drones, aircraft, missiles, rockets, artillery, and mortar threats for counter-UAS and short-range air defense operations. (Picture source: Saab)

The radar covers its complete search volume every second and can detect fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, fast missiles, rockets, artillery, and mortar threats, as well as low, slow, and small UAVs in high-clutter environments. Saab’s Drone Tracker function is specifically intended to detect and track small and mini-UAVs while distinguishing them from birds, reducing false alarms that can complicate operations around bases and other defended areas. Saab also states that Giraffe 1X can detect a UAV lighter than a milk carton at 4 km, providing an indication of its ability to detect very small targets rather than only larger one-way attack drones.

For the RAF, the radar’s role extends beyond detecting a drone because Giraffe 1X can provide engagement-quality target data to command-and-control networks and external weapon systems. Once a target is detected and tracked, its data can support a wider engagement chain involving identification, threat evaluation and selection of an appropriate electronic or kinetic effector. The same radar can simultaneously perform air surveillance, ground-based air defense target acquisition and rocket, artillery and mortar sense-and-warn functions without requiring separate sensors for each mission. This makes Giraffe 1X a surveillance component within a layered counter-UAS and short-range air defense architecture rather than a standalone counter-drone weapon.

Mobility further supports this distributed architecture. Giraffe 1X can operate while moving through its Search On The Move capability, using an inertial navigation system to stabilize the sensor so existing targets remain tracked and new tracks can be generated during movement or redeployment. This allows units to maintain an air picture while changing position instead of creating a surveillance gap each time the radar moves. The sensor can also serve as the primary radar for very-short-range air defense or as a gap filler complementing larger ground-based air defense radars, allowing several lightweight sensors to extend coverage around dispersed sites or along likely low-altitude approaches.

The acquisition also benefits from an established British production base. Saab UK completed its 100th Giraffe 1X at Fareham by May 2026 and opened a new Integration & Verification facility for system testing, software integration and customer acceptance. The Fareham operation produces and supports Giraffe 1X alongside Giraffe AMB and TAIPAN radars, while Giraffe 1X production is divided between Britain and Sweden. Domestic manufacturing and testing capacity provides the UK with an existing supply and support chain that can shorten the interval between an operational requirement and radar delivery, an important consideration as counter-UAS requirements evolve faster than conventional acquisition cycles.

The September RAF delivery is separate from the Giraffe 1X procurement announced on April 1, 2026. That order was worth roughly £24 million and used funding from the UK-administered NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine Trust Fund, with production assigned to Saab’s Fareham facility. The new RAF urgent operational requirement instead directly supports British counter-drone operations, and neither its value nor the number of systems delivered has been disclosed. The distinction is important because Britain is therefore supporting both allied requirements and its own deployed counter-UAS forces through the same radar production base.

The RAF acquisition reflects the growing requirement to separate detection from the choice of effector as drone attacks create increasingly unfavorable cost exchanges for air defense forces. Small UAVs and one-way attack drones do not necessarily justify expensive missile interceptors, but defenders require sufficiently early and reliable tracks to determine whether electronic warfare, guns, short-range missiles or other countermeasures provide the appropriate response. A radar able to detect small targets while distributing tracks to external command-and-control and weapon systems can therefore support several engagement methods from the same surveillance layer. This becomes particularly relevant during sustained attacks, when preserving missile inventories can be as important as defeating individual drones.

The British requirement also reflects a broader move toward rapidly deployable counter-UAS sensors rather than relying exclusively on fixed base-defense systems. Denmark provides a recent example: several Giraffe 1X systems were initially deployed ahead of security summits in Copenhagen in October 2025, with Saab delivering them only three days after the initial Danish request, and Denmark subsequently purchased the radars after more than six months of operation. The Danish systems used the self-contained Compact Radar Module configuration, allowing the radar to be moved between pickup flatbeds, buildings and other vehicles with limited supporting infrastructure. This demonstrates how the same radar can be rapidly repositioned as the protected site, threat direction or force disposition changes.

For the RAF Regiment, the immediate effect is therefore a more mobile detection layer for deployed counter-UAS operations. A system weighing less than 150 kg, refreshing the complete surveillance volume every second and capable of detecting small UAVs in clutter can be positioned closer to the forces or installations requiring protection than larger air-surveillance radars. Its ability to pass tracks to other systems means the radar does not determine how every target must be defeated, allowing commanders to match the effector to the threat. In an environment where small drones, missiles and other low-altitude threats may appear simultaneously, that combination of mobility, rapid track updates and networked engagement is more important than treating counter-UAS as an isolated radar-and-interceptor problem.

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Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.