By Luiza Ilie
CAPU MIDIA, Romania, April 24 (Reuters) - At a Romanian base overlooking the Black Sea, camouflaged figures squinted up into the sky and drones whined far overhead - the final test of a U.S.-made, AI-powered defence system as the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine gets ever closer.
Centre stage were the Merops drone interceptors made by ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s company Project Eagle that will be put into operation in Romania "in a matter of days," Defence Minister Radu Miruta said.
The NATO and European Union state shares a 650-km (400-mile) land border with Ukraine and has seen Russian drones repeatedly breach its airspace as Moscow attacks Ukraine's ports just across the Danube river.
'THE THREAT IS REAL'
With drone threats mounting on NATO's eastern flank, states are scrambling to boost their air defences.
"The threat is real," Major General Arnoud Stallmann, assistant chief of staff at NATO's Allied Command Transformation, said on Wednesday at the Capu Midia Air Defence Training Range, 80 km away from the Ukrainian frontline.
"And with the incursions in NATO-allied countries of drones, we needed a solution for that."
Romania and NATO have spent two weeks trying out interceptor drones, radars, sensors and jamming equipment made by private companies, while putting existing systems through their paces.
Merops, already in use in Ukraine and another of its neighbours, Poland, includes a ground control base, launchers and its Surveyor interceptor drones that can operate autonomously through AI and radar, NATO sources said.
Defence Minister Radu Miruta described the test as partially successful after an interceptor swerved too quickly at one point and missed its target.
He said he was impressed with the thermal imaging, the radar's precision and the way it engaged targets.
The system would be able to counter drone threats along the Danube river, Miruta said. "Merops reduces the number of scenarios we cannot handle."
Romanian air defences currently include F-16 fighter jets, Patriot systems, Lockheed Martin's HIMARS rocket launchers, short-range South Korean surface-to-air Chiron missiles and German anti-aircraft Gepard guns.
Romania and Ukraine also plan to jointly produce drones under the European Union's new SAFE rearmament funding mechanism.
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
