World Defense Show 2024: UAE’s Edge looks beyond Middle East and steps into the CUAS and protection fight
SkyKnight has been developed by Edge’s Halcon. (Photo: Halcon)
Edge has experienced large growth, both organically and through acquisition and partnerships in the past few years, as the UAE company has brought together varying technologies and skill sets. It now faces the challenge of using these acquired capabilities effectively to meet customer requirements and enhance its bottom line.
The UAE’s Edge Group has not been alone in following trends accelerated by recent geo-political situations. Via its range of products and services, however, it has been trying to use its suite of companies and products to capture market share.
At the World Defense Show in Saudi Arabia this week, the company has been showing major products from some of its 25 subsidiaries, including vehicle manufacturer Nimr, UGV builder Mlirem, missile maker Halcon and electronic warfare and intelligence solutions company Sign4l.
The company’s expertise include UAVs, UGVs, ISR, ISTAR, munitions, EW systems and cybersecurity. Miles Chambers, vice-president – international business at Edge, said that he believed stitching these capabilities into systems was a key challenge while thinking of creative solutions.
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Chambers noted a key example of the challenges the company faced was with a CUAS, an area of the defence industry which has seen substantial growth across the company-funded development programmes of many businesses throughout the world.
“Layered protection is key, both against UAS and other attacks, whereby there are levels of protection,” Chambers remarked. “While there are soft-kill CUAS options, such as jammers to protect critical infrastructure in populated areas, we also have Skynex SkyKnight air defence system which is a development between Edge’s Halcon and Rheinmetall.
“There also needs to be a flexibility in combating UAS beyond a database of platforms and waveforms.”
Chambers also noted that when it came to active protection systems there needed to be an awareness that there were other less expensive ways to protect vehicles which do not need the same level or range of protection, with an example of this being the protection concept.
Edge’s intent to co-operate with other companies was demonstrated by the Lacroix S-KAPS (Soft-Kill Advanced Protection System) which was designed to protect against laser-guided weapons and provide all-round surveillance. The system was displayed at the show on the Edge stand fitted to a Nimr Ajban MkII vehicle.
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