UAV’s – But Not Only

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

By Arie Egozi

The UAV’s market has been boiling with growing demand answered by a greater competition among the manufacturers.

This situation forces the Israeli manufacturers to offer potential clients “turnkey” projects that include a lot more than the aerial platforms and payloads.

In the last five years, the Israeli companies have been facing a growing competition especially in the mini- and medium-size categories, as a result of new manufacturers that have entered the market and have, in many cases, lowered the price.

The problem has become even more complicated as from time to time, for “political” reasons, the Israeli ministry of defence freezes negotiations to sell UASs to certain countries. The recent example is a total embargo on the sale of Israeli military systems including UAS to the Ukraine. This due to the improved Moscow-Jerusalem ties.

This situation prompted a new business approach based on offering the potential UAS client much more.

The packages include the UAS, a variety of payloads, the ground station, command and control systems, aerostat carried payloads, communications systems, and in some cases even weapon systems that can work in conjunction with the UAS’ payloads.

Israeli industry sources say that these turnkey projects are much more profitable when the customer is persuaded to purchase them.

Almost all the Israeli companies are now offering such combined packages.

According to industry sources, this trend will continue and is even expected to grow – “this is a must, and the results of such contracts that have been already signed prove it,” one source said.