Frontex completes trial to integrate large drones into border security operations

The European border and coast guard agency, Frontex, has flown its largest drones yet from a ship at sea.

In a pilot project with the Italian Coast Guard that ran from May to July 2026, two VTOL drones operated day and night from a patrol vessel in the central Mediterranean, giving the crew a live picture of what was happening far beyond what they could see from the deck. It was the first time that drones of this class, in the 50 to 100 kilogram range, and two of them operating together, have flown as a fully integrated part of a vessel in a Frontex pilot project.

The aim of the pilot project was to test whether drones and a ship can work as a single system. Over 19 days at sea, from 27 June to 15 July, the drones completed the full 150 flight hours planned for the trial. At the peak of the trial, the two aircraft were airborne simultaneously for a combined 20 hours a day, and flights proved a range of 150 kilometres from the ship with the aircraft capable of flying further still. Throughout, they streamed live video into a Common Operational Picture, a single live view of the situation at sea shared by the ship and command centres ashore. Following system integration tests from mid-May, flight operations were built up in three stages, with flights gradually becoming longer, more complex, more operationally relevant, and more exposed to demanding conditions at sea.