IAI touts intel suite to predict surprise attacks as seen in Ukraine

LONDON — Russia’s use of drones to target both civilian and military targets in Ukraine is boosting European interest in an intelligence analysis system made by Israel Aerospace Industries that could help predict such attacks, according to company officials.

Gideon Fostick, the director for marketing and business development for the intelligence, communications and electronic-warfare division of IAI’s offshoot Elta Systems, told Defense News the ongoing war is a key factor driving the interest in the contractor’s Starlight cloud-based, multi-intelligence analysis system.

“We have sold Starlight to two foreign customers, one Middle Eastern and one Asian country. It has been successfully used in combat operations. Since the war in Ukraine began, we have seen a spike in interest from European countries,” he said on the first day of this year’s DSEI industry show here, which runs Sept. 12-15.

Starlight analyzes a broad set of data, ranging from enemy troop movements to social media posts, searching for anomalies in behavior to detect threats, according to Fostick.

“This product solves a major problem in the battlefield: militaries are drowning in information, but starving for data. With Starlight, you can replace hundreds of analysts. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, this system can detect threats and generate targets to allow the military to respond,” he said.

Anomalies in behavior and patterns are detected by the system’s algorithms which constantly improve themselves through machine learning, according to Fostick.

“Humans need minutes or hours to analyze data. Starlight needs seconds, and is capable of identifying land-based, airborne and naval targets, including large numbers of unmanned targets,” the company representative said.