Prophesee launches Mantara® drone detection system
AI Analysis
Prophesee has launched Mantara®, a novel event-based vision system for drone detection and tracking, alongside its new Hearth® AI processing platform. The company secured €20 million in funding to support its dual-use (civil/defense) strategy, emphasizing low-latency, high-performance detection even in challenging conditions. Field validation occurred in June 2026, coinciding with product launches at Eurosatory and Vivatech.
Key Takeaways
- Mantara utilizes event-based sensors, reacting to motion independently and in microseconds, offering advantages over traditional frame-based cameras in speed and clarity for fast-moving targets.
- Hearth® is a new software platform designed specifically for event-based sensors, incorporating AI, cybersecurity, and GDPR compliance.
- The system is designed for low latency, enabling faster detection, characterization, and response to drone threats.
- Prophesee is majority-owned by French shareholders, indicating a strategic focus on the European defense market.
- The technology is designed to be adaptable with over-the-air updates and sensor fusion capabilities, ensuring future compatibility.
Why It Matters
The emergence of event-based vision systems like Mantara represents a potential leap forward in counter-UAS technology, addressing limitations of current systems in challenging environments. This technology could significantly improve reaction times and effectiveness in detecting and neutralizing drone threats, particularly in contested electromagnetic spectrum environments. The French investment signals a growing emphasis on independent European drone defense capabilities.
Prophesee launches Mantara® drone detection system
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Prophesee raises €20 million and launches Mantara, the first fully integrated drone detection system built onevent-based vision and AI
Mantara is the first integrated drone detection system designed natively event-based from the ground up – from chip to AI processing – and fully embedded. Its software platform Hearth is the first platform purpose-built for event-based sensors, embedding its own AI models and enabling continuous over-the-air updates in the field. Six months after Jean Ferré joined as CEO, Prophesee announces a €20 million fundraise to fuel its new full-stack, dual-use civil and defense strategy.
PARIS, June 15, 2026 – As Eurosatory and Vivatech open their doors this week in Paris, Prophesee – inventor and world leader in event-based perception – announces the launch of Mantara®: the first integrated system built natively event-based for drone detection and tracking. Mantara runs on Hearth®, a new software platform with built-in AI processing.
Field-validated in June 2026, Mantara is powered by Hearth, the platform succeeding OpenEB and the Metavision SDK. These announcements coincide with a €20 million capital raise led by French fund Critical Path Ventures, with participation from existing shareholders. Prophesee is now held by a substantial majority of French shareholders.
Mantara is a camera whose performance rests on integrated sensors that do not capture images but motion and events. Each pixel responds independently, in microseconds, the instant movement occurs. Fast, erratic targets that blur or vanish between frames on a conventional camera remain perfectly visible and fully characterizable by Mantara: in low light, in backlit conditions, against cluttered backgrounds. Low latency is the heart of its edge: in the time a conventional system takes to capture, transfer, and process a single frame, Mantara has already detected a drone, characterized it, and triggered a response or initiated tracking.
This capability is rooted in a bio-mimetic design inspired by the human visual system. The eye does not record the world in full. Instead, it captures sparse, essential signals, and the brain reconstructs and interprets what matters. If Mantara is the eye, Hearth is the brain.
“In counter-drone missions, the best camera is not the one that sees everything. It is the one that delivers exactly what you need to read a scene in real time, make the right call, and stay ahead of a threat that never stops evolving,” says Jean Ferré, CEO of Prophesee.
Hearth is built with cybersecurity requirements, GDPR compliance, and AI governance standards baked in. It enables sensor fusion and will ensure backward compatibility across successive generations of Prophesee sensors. Applications built on Metavision and OpenEB will migrate to Hearth seamlessly.
Recent conflicts have put drones at the center of modern warfare, and the threat is moving fast