At Emirati unmanned show, local defense giant EDGE Group positions itself as 'key' autonomy player

The GY300 unmanned aerial vehicle unveiled by EDGE Group at Umex 2024. (Agnes Helou / Breaking Defense)

UMEX 2024 — At the Unmanned Systems Exhibition, the Emirati defense giant EDGE Group announced two major unmanned contracts, acquired a new defense distributor and debuted three new unmanned systems. It’s all part, the conglomerate’s chairman said, of EDGE’s push to establish itself as a “key player” in the autonomous system and AI realm.

“We have embarked on products. We have started delivering products that our clients already placing orders on products, and today without shadow of a doubt when it comes to autonomous platforms, we are a key player in this game and the aim is to be seen as a key technology player,” Faisal Al Bannnai, chairman of EDGE’s Board of Directors, told Breaking Defense and another outlet.

He said that at the launch of the conglomerate four years ago, it had three unmanned products in its portfolio, compared to 50 unmanned systems it has now — 17 of which are already in production while others will enter production between 2024 and 2025.

“In our four-year journey, in the first two and a half [to] three years, we were focusing on aligning our internal capability, the strategy, and the last 12 months we’ve been targeting small- to medium- companies to accelerate our roadmap,” Al Bannai said.

EDGE, which currently has more than 25 subsidiary defense companies, has been heavily investing in defense firms worldwide, including acquiring a majority stake at Estonia’s Milrem Robotics, an unmanned ground vehicles firm. It has also brought a majority stake in Swiss unmanned helicopter firms ANAVIA, and make significant investments in Brazil.

As to the push into South America, Al Bannai said, “It’s a large market that is ready for a new disruptive flavor of player to come in this regard, someone that is agile, willing to listen to the client, and that it’s not a top-down approach, but it’s a partnership approach even with the client.”

He added that it was a worthwhile decision to push in that market and that there’s more to come. “You will see us grabbing a serious market share in Latin America market…,” he said.

Back home, EDGE entity Milrem Robotics, most recently added major contracts direct from the United Arab Emirate’s Ministry of Defense. One was for 60 unmanned ground vehicles, including 20 tracked robotic combat vehicles and 40 THeMIS UGVs. No pricetag was included in the announcement.

Al Bannai said that these vehicles are intended to do full operational trials, as the MoD will decide at a later stage “on the larger order for automating the ground vehicles.”

The other deal, announced today, is for Edge’s entity ANAVIA to provide the MoD with 200 HT-100 and HT-750 unmanned helicopters.

The company chairman said that the delivery of these two deals “will start this year actually, in a few months.”

Earlier at UMEX, EDGE also announced the acquisition of the Abu Dhabi-based International Golden Group, which that has traditionally been a supplier to UAE armed forces. IGG displayed foreign defense systems at a separate stand at UMEX, where it showed off a number of systems developed by Chinese, Ukranian, and Turkish firm, with a new Turkish-made TB3 aerial drone standing out at the show.

“I think bringing IGG is part of the overall strategy of building a very large, advanced technology defensively here and globally. There is no issue in buying products and almost certainly you will not develop every product in the planet,” Al Bannai said. “Very few countries can really cover the needs across every every product, but by bringing IGG [as] part of EDGE, IGG has many vendor partners in that regard to deal with, and actually we cherish this relationship but what will happen now is we will work closer with this vendor partner on finding the right collaborations, the right partnerships, and maybe areas where we can jointly invest in some technologies.”

He added that bringing IGG as part of EDGE Group’s portfolio, it could expand its network further. “There is already a number of discussions with existing IGG partners to do joint work on a number of areas in this regard,” he said.

Asked whether these companies include Chinese firms, Al Bannai said it includes “any company on the planet that’s willing to support the UAE.”

Elsewhere at the show, EDGE unveiled an unmanned aerial GY300, an unmanned aerial vehicle with rotary wings dedicated for cargo and logistical transportation with 300-kilogram payload, and with short take-off and landing capability.

“The platform is under development and will be flying in the coming years,” EDGE senior vice president for strategy and excellence Ahmed Al Khoory told Breaking Defense.

Two unmanned land systems also made their debut at the Emirati firm’s stand: BUNKER PRO, a tracked unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) designed for surveillance, targeting identification and patrolling missions, and M-BUGGY, a wheeled ISR land vehicle.

Highlighting the firm’s concentration on autonomous systems and artificial intelligence, Al Khoory told Breaking Defense, “EDGE group has 160 platforms in its portfolio, 70 of them are autonomous systems and subsystems.”