PARIS — US defense tech firm Anduril and UAE-based EDGE Group have launched a new joint venture to manufacture drones, with orders for an initial product already booked, the two companies announced today.
Through the new partnership, the firms are standing up an organization called the EDGE-Anduril Production Alliance, billed as a hub of manufacturing and sustainment in the Middle East. The defense contractors are looking to pitch their shared autonomous tech for commercial applications as well.
Besides EDGE being a “main player” in the UAE for defense technology, a shared focus “on fielding modern systems quickly and at scale” were key reasons to form the partnership, Anduril’s Senior Vice President for Maneuver Dominance Shane Arnott told reporters during a briefing ahead of the announcement.
“We see a long skyline of expanding that relationship together in a number of exciting areas over time,” EDGE executive Troy Lambeth said during the briefing. “We’re very excited about this new partnership with Anduril.”
The EDGE-Anduril team has also clinched the UAE as a customer for their first product: a mid-size tailsitter drone called Omen. A tailsitter drone sits on its tail for takeoff and landing but can transition to horizontal flight to cruise like an airplane. Arnott said that the drone will be about 10 feet tall on its tail and on the upper end of what’s known as Group 3, which the FAA defines as any unmanned system with a max gross takeoff weight roughly ranging from 55 pounds all the way up to 1300 pounds.
Pointing to a “blank spot in the market” for a drone of Omen’s payload capacity, Arnott said that the new system can make a play for roles normally reserved for larger aircraft like business jets. After flight hours logged on a prototype, Arnott said Anduril “hit a wall” due to propulsion constraints, but that hybrid electric options pioneered through a partnership with Archer Aviation helped provide a breakthrough to enable runway-independent operations.
“We believe we’re onto something and … this is less about disrupting Group 3. This is more about disrupting current maritime patrol, special mission aircraft, much bigger systems, that’s what we’re going after,” he said, noting both defense and commercial applications. The aircraft will be dual use, meaning that US and UAE export controls would apply if military mission systems are equipped.
Arnott said the Omen drone will “very likely” be built at an EDGE facility through the joint venture. According to a press release announcing the drone, EGDE plans to invest $200 million for its manufacturing, building off $850 million Anduril says it has already internally spent. The two companies intend to carry the platform into “full rate production by the end of 2028,” the release says.
The UAE’s Omen order consists of 50 aircraft, though Arnott declined to discuss the price. Local orders and those of “other allies” would be fulfilled at the joint EDGE-Anduril facility in the UAE, but US orders — if any come to pass — would be manufactured at Anduril’s “Arsenal” factory in Ohio, according to the press release.
The Omen “is a scalable architecture,” meaning it could theoretically be built in smaller or larger versions, “but today we were announcing this one configuration,” Arnott said.
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