Shield AI agreed to acquire Echodyne in a $5.3 billion transaction announced Thursday — a major financial transaction that expands the prime defense contractors’ drone-warfare capabilities.
Echodyne produces next-generation, solid-state radar systems patented as Metamaterials Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) technology. Its highly advanced systems are flexible and can be easily incorporated into a wide variety of weapons and monitoring systems to detect drones, including high-energy lasers and microwave weapons.
In September, Echodyne was awarded a $250 million contract by the Defense Department’s premier national counter-drone task force, JIATF-401, to provide counter-drone technology to military forces over 36 months.
Speaking to Defense News in July, Echodyne CEO Eben Frankenberg said demand for counter-drone detecting radar is “red hot” and could grow tenfold by 2030. The company produces technology that can track small quadcopter drones and even over 1,000 objects at a time.
“There is a rush of interest globally for counter-drone,” Frankenberg told Defense News. “The Ukraine war made it obvious to everyone that drones had changed the face of warfare, but the Iran war made it obvious that everything’s at risk.”
The acquisition is a bold new move for Shield AI, which is already well-known as the maker of the X-Bat and V-Bat vertical takeoff and landing systems, or VTOL drones. The V-Bat became famous for assisting the U.S. Coast Guard in conducting reconnaissance on illicit drug trafficking at sea and enabling law enforcement to make large maritime drug busts.
The company also builds Hivemind autonomy software, which delivers AI pilots to perform multi-agent teaming and swarming across a wide range of unmanned systems, including unmanned aircraft systems, drone boats and spacecraft.
Shield AI CEO Gary Steele said the purchase of Echodyne supports the company’s aim to branch into three different areas of unmanned systems.
“We are building a new-generation defense technology company consisting of three fast-growing, high-margin, mutually supporting business units: autonomy software, autonomous systems and mission systems,” Steele said in a statement.
Frankenberg said in a statement that Shield AI’s mission complements that of Echodyne and that he expects unity of effort to multiply what both companies can deliver.
“Hundreds of customers rely on our radars to detect and track drones, protect people and infrastructure, secure borders, and ensure safe airspace operations,” Frankenberg said.
“Shield shares our view that autonomous systems can only act on what they can sense, and superior sensors lead to superior systems and outcomes,” he continued. “By joining Shield, we’re creating a company with the size and breadth to deliver even more value to our broad range of defense, government, and commercial customers around the globe.”
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