MARSS picked to run command brain of BAE drone-killer

The defence technology firm MARSS has been selected by BAE Systems to provide the command-and-control system for its most advanced counter-drone capability, with the agreement signed at the Eurosatory exhibition in Paris, the company has said.

Under the deal, MARSS will supply its AI-powered NiDAR platform to act as what the company calls the intelligent nerve centre for BAE Systems’ Anti Threat System, known as BATS, the firm’s most advanced and scalable counter-uncrewed aircraft capability to date. The platform is intended to integrate the system’s full suite of sensors and effectors into a single protective capability, tying together the radars and cameras that spot a threat with the weapons that defeat it. The agreement was confirmed live on the second day of the show, where the two companies’ leadership met to complete the signing.

Command and control is the layer that turns a collection of sensors and weapons into a working air defence system, fusing incoming data, classifying what it is looking at and coordinating a response, and MARSS says NiDAR accelerates that decision-making from minutes to seconds across detection, classification and defeat. The company points to more than 60 deployments worldwide and two decades of operational experience protecting critical infrastructure, military assets and lives as evidence of a proven system.

The founder and chief executive of MARSS, Johannes Pinl, said the firm was “delighted to have been selected” for the BATS programme, and that the agreement showed how “agile, technology-focused SMEs can support tier-one defence primes to deliver world-leading capabilities at the pace demanded by current threats”. The NiDAR platform, he said, delivered the rapid detection, classification and coordinated response needed to counter asymmetric threats, reducing the decision cycle “from minutes to seconds” and allowing operators to defend against single drones, coordinated attacks and swarms.

For BAE Systems, the selection brings in a specialist command-and-control partner for a capability aimed squarely at the fast-growing market for counter-drone systems. Louise Heywood, Head of Strategy at BAE Systems Digital Intelligence, said technology that helps identify a threat quickly and accurately “isn’t a luxury, it’s a lifeline”, and that choosing the right command-and-control partner for BATS had been “a critical decision”. The collaboration, she said, was exactly the kind needed to deliver “a resilient, layered defence against today’s dynamic uncrewed threat landscape”.

MARSS says the sensor- and effector-agnostic design of NiDAR allows it to work with both legacy systems and new hardware, integrating each sensor and weapon as it comes online, an approach intended to let the system adapt as threats and customer requirements change. Under the long-term agreement the firm will provide both software licensing and technical support for BAE Systems’ counter-drone demonstrations and deployments.