A general view of the city skyline at sunset from Dhow Harbour on February 5, 2015 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
BEIRUT — The United Arab Emirate defense conglomerate EDGE has announced a “strategic” $14 million investment in the Israeli firm High Lander, the provider of an unmanned air traffic management system — an investment EDGE hopes will lead to more work together and the latest evidence of the warming between Gulf and Israeli firms.
“We believe that our investment in High Lander is an excellent opportunity for EDGE to take part in the nascent technology space, such as [Unmanned Traffic Management],” an EDGE spokesperson told Breaking Defense of the deal announced Tuesday. “Through this investment, we will be engaging more with the company on various opportunities, which we believe will have mutual benefits for High Lander and EDGE.”
Work on UAE’s use of High Lander’s Universal UTM system will be done both in Israel and in the UAE, as well as “internationally,” the spokesperson said. Universal UTM, High Lander says, “autonomously manages” drone air traffic “in real time.”
From his side, the co-founder and CEO of High Lander, Alon Abelson said in a statement: “We are excited about the strategic partnership with EDGE because it strengthens High Lander’s position in drone fleet management and UTM spaces as we begin to scale globally. High Lander and EDGE have a mutual goal of creating the most technologically advanced airspace automation systems possible, and we look forward to working with EDGE for many years to come.”
The agreement is among the latest since between Israeli firms and companies based in formerly regional rivals in the wake of the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020. That diplomatic breakthrough normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco.
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In a statement, chairman of the board of EDGE, Faisal Al Bannai, highlighted the conglomerate’s increasing focus on the developing autonomous aerospace solutions, the need for a superior and readily available air traffic management platform could not be more urgent.
“Today’s operating environments require the most advanced unmanned air traffic control systems, and High Lander provides the only truly universal solution for this critical requirement. Our investment in High Lander as a major shareholder is logical for EDGE, and mutually beneficial and opportune for both companies, allowing us to grow and perfect these solutions further together, in both the military and civilian domains,” he added.
EDGE, the national UAE defense conglomerate that was inaugurated in February 2020, is developing a number of unmanned systems that can benefit from UTM including swarming drones called Hunter-2S, precision-guided systems Shadow 25 and Shadow 50 UAVs, QX family of suicide drones, and Rash 2-H precision guided system.
“Universal UTM is a stand-alone air traffic management solution. The advantage of Universal UTM is that it’s drone and hardware-agnostic. This enables EDGE, and other future customers, to use High Lander’s capabilities without having to install extra hardware or make any platform adjustments,” the EDGE spokesperson told Breaking Defense.
He didn’t respond directly whether the system’s IP will be Emirati or Israeli, instead saying, “the current system is already mature and ready to provide service immediately. EDGE and High Lander will work together on any traffic management solutions in any jurisdiction.”
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