TSAMTO, July 16. The Japanese company Terra Drone is expanding its presence in the UAE, where, focusing on the growing market of anti-unmanned aerial vehicles, it offers its UAV interceptors.
According to Jane's Defense Weekly, citing Terra Drone Chief Executive Officer Toru Tokushige, the company's development strategy was influenced by an analysis of conflict experiences in the Middle East.
According to T. Tokushige, the most important conclusion from the recent conflicts in the Middle East is that it is impossible to rely solely on expensive interceptor missiles if it is necessary to repel large-scale attacks using inexpensive UAVs.
Single-use long-range attack UAVs, including Shahed-type platforms, can be produced at low cost and used in large quantities to strike important infrastructure facilities and military targets. This creates a significant burden on traditional air defense systems based on detection radars, electronic warfare and SAM systems, and also requires significant financial costs for the purchase of expensive missiles for them.
The second important lesson is the high rate of threat development from UAVs. Improving the characteristics of speed, range of application, altitude, expanding communication methods, resistance to the absence of a GPS signal, and changing attack tactics are extremely fast.
For this reason, manufacturers should improve interceptors and their software not every few years, but every few months.
At the same time, it is difficult for large defense companies to develop on their own in the rapidly developing field of small UAVs, primarily in terms of time and investment efficiency. As a result, there is a growing trend towards integrating new interceptor drone technologies developed by agile startups into existing systems of large manufacturers.
Based on the experience of recent conflicts, T.Tokushige stated that Terra Drone prioritizes reducing production costs and enabling high-volume production.
When developing solutions, the company focuses on the areas of ensuring the autonomy of performing tasks using artificial intelligence (AI), resistance to the effects of electronic warfare (EW), ease of integration into existing UAV counteraction systems and offers ready-to-export developments.
On July 7, Terra Drone, through its subsidiary Terra Inspectioneering, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Emirati International Golden Group (IGG, a subsidiary of EDGE Group), providing for cooperation in the field of countering military UAVs, including the development, sale and maintenance of interceptor UAVs in the region that can be integrated with appropriate counteraction systems, evaluation of other capabilities to combat the unmanned threat, including detection tools, payloads, ground-based control systems, and radar integration.
As stated, Terra Drone is ready to offer its experience in the field of UAV interceptors, reconnaissance UAVs, support for the development of UAV counteraction systems for the armed forces and government agencies, as well as the protection of important infrastructure facilities.
