MARSS demos NiDAR in US and Saudi Arabia CUAS exercise
Image courtesy MARSS
The Red Sands Live Fire Exercise 23.2 operation sought to strengthen military relations between the US and Saudi Arabia while showcasing how different technologies could defeat varied attacks. It also served to develop UAS combative procedures while increasing the defensive readiness of the two nations against emerging UAS threats.
The live exercise was a highly complex undertaking, involving a range of different counter UAS technologies and UAS targets, and a variety of sophisticated enemy tactics, techniques and procedures-based scenarios.
Several participants and systems were engaged in the exercise, including MARSS with its innovative NiDAR technology.
Jeff Tipton, Business Development Director in Defence at MARSS, commented: “Through our involvement in the live exercise, MARSS was able to demonstrate the effectiveness of our live NiDAR Command and Control Centre to the US CENTCOM Commander, as well as the Chief of General Staff of the Royal Saudi Armed Forces and his Component Commanders. It was a pleasure to be involved, and truly exciting to work with such esteemed colleagues.”
During the exercise, NiDAR was presented via an easy-to-use interface on a single touch-screen, demonstrating NiDAR’s ability to integrate data from multiple sensors into a single tactical picture – presenting the information required to control and respond to threats. This is a key advantage of the NiDAR system versus traditional systems, where multiple operators are typically required to look at separate sensor screens, translate and coordinate between them.
Tipton added: “MARSS’ AI technologies were also on display, capable of autonomously identifying, categorising and tracking potential threats while alerting users to mission critical events in real-time.
“As a result, NiDAR is able to reduce the operator burden and associated human risk factors, as well as providing enhanced decision-support and allowing for a more rapid and accurate response.”
During the special exercise, MARSS partnered with EOS Defense Systems USA (EOS) as the Remote Weapons Station/Cannon provider during the CUAS Hard Kill Challenge, showing innovative and effective CUAS defeat options to the group. The EOS CEO, Phil Coker, said: ”The Hard Kill Challenge was a great opportunity to demonstrate the power and potential of combining a very powerful and modern battle management system with a precise kinetic kill capability. This is a winning combination.”
The latest exercise follows Red Sands 23.1 that was conducted back in March 2023, with both MARSS and EOS now invited to participate in Red Sands 2024 (Networked Lethality) with their fully networked end-to-end CUAS solutions.
“For MARSS, the intent is to show the full NIDAR Cueing Capability live at Red Sands 2024 and defeat drones from NiDAR to EOS HK,” Jeff Tipton concluded.
