JERUSALEM (IAI press service) — Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) said on Thursday it would jointly develop an advanced drone defence system with the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned weapons maker EDGE.

ELI-4030 Drone Guard

ELTA’s Drone Guard is an operationally proven multi-sensor multi-layer C-UAS solution developed for the military and homeland security market.

EDGE, the UAE’s advanced technology group for defence and beyond, today agreed upon a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) – Israel’s major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, to develop an advanced C-UAS (Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System) Solution tailored to the UAE market, with wider ranging benefits for the MENA region and beyond.

Through IAI’s C-UAS solutions to detect, identify, classify, and intercept a broad range of threats, EDGE, a young and disruptive company that has recently launched a series of Electronic Warfare solutions at a rapid pace, is leveraging its subsidiary, SIGN4L, a provider of electronic warfare services and solutions for national security, to collaborate with the Israeli defence manufacturer to build the tailored C-UAS Solution.

Comprising of a combination of IAI and SIGN4L products, the solution will be comprised of detection and identification systems (radar and optics, RF), soft kill solutions (jamming, cyber take over) and hard kill capability (guns, missiles, electromagnetic and laser) and an advance command and control. The C-UAS is fully autonomous requiring no to limited human. A series of countermeasures, ranging from jamming to drone destruction, will be offered based on the level of threat and the customer’s targeted operating environment.

Both SIGN4L and IAI will leverage their technical capabilities to jointly develop the system in response to specific customer needs. Further support will be available via IAI’s partnership with Belgium Advanced Technology Systems, Belgium, which has a local technical and marketing presence in the region.

Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, EDGE is an advanced technology group established to develop agile, bold solutions for defence and beyond. Consolidating over 25 entities and employing 13,000 persons, EDGE offers expertise across five core clusters: Platforms and Systems; Missiles & Weapons; Cyber Defence; Electronic Warfare & Intelligence; and Mission Support.

The leading provider of EW&I solutions in the UAE, SIGN4L provides situational awareness and EW spectrum superiority across military and intelligence operations. It develops, acquires and supplies lifecycle support for defence and security forces in three main areas of focus: integrated electronic warfare; aircraft electronic survival systems; and intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) sensors for battle-space awareness.