Varjo showcases C-UAS simulator, announces partnership with VRAI

The Varjo/AVS C-UAS simulator showcased at ITEC 26. (Giles Ebbutt)

Finnish technology company Varjo Technologies has partnered with Australian company Applied Virtual Simulation (AVS) to produce a variant of the latter's Horizon Guardian counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) shotgun simulator. The simulator uses the Varjo XR-4 head-mounted display (HMD), and the companies showcases it at the 2026 International Training Technology Exhibition and Conference (ITEC 26) held in London in April.

A Varjo representative told Janes that experience in Ukraine has shown that the shotgun is effective as “a last line of defence when it comes to first person view [FPV] drones.” However training to do this is difficult, he added, without shooting at real FPV unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with live shotgun ammunition, which is expensive and has limits on the training scenarios that can be generated.

The C-UAS simulator consists of the XR-4 HMD integrated with Obriy UAV simulation software, which according to AVS online is supplied by Warsaw-based Twist Robotics Group. Obriy provides a range of UAV simulation capabilities, but the Horizon Guardian solution is limited to FPV UAVs. An emulated shotgun integrated with the software completes the package.

Varjo's XR-4 is a mixed-reality HMD which includes ultra-high-resolution visuals with 51 pixels per degree, a 120°×105° field-of-view, more than 20-megapixel stereo camera passthrough and eye tracking.

The Varjo representative explained that the simulation produces both the image and the sound of an FPV UAV “[because] when they attack you, you hear them first before you see them, so the system trains that. With spatial audio in the headset, you can practice where it's coming from and how you distinguish how far away it is.” Once sighted the trainee can then attempt to engage the UAV with the emulated shotgun.