Description

The competition to supply militaries with various types of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is increasing. A global rise in defense spending to attain UAS capabilities is leading to companies continuously developing and/or upgrading platforms and sensors to meet rapidly changing and expanding military applications. In response, military UAS suppliers have been multiplying over the past several years. Due to the decreasing costs of the required technologies, there is a relatively low barrier to market entry, leading to an increasing number of viable competitors. Even small countries are developing indigenous military-focused UAS platforms. While companies such as General Atomics and Israeli Airspace Industries (IAI) have solidified themselves as the top global manufacturers, over the past 2 decades many other suppliers have made inroads into the market mainly with lower cost, tactical-size or smaller UAS. This research service lists prominent military UAS manufacturers as well as some of the companies poised to challenge incumbents for a portion of a market that stands to grow to between $11 billion and $12 billion annually by 2020. The information is divided up by geographic regions.

Research Scope:
This research service includes information about military UAS suppliers that manufacture platforms and, in many cases, UAS subsystems and support equipment. The assessment does not include UAS that are manufactured exclusively by a military organization such as a country’s air force or research and development arm. One example would be the Defense Research Development Organization (DRDO) in India which is solely funded by the Indian Government. It also does not include UAS used exclusively as targets. Competitive information includes:
• Short company descriptions and highlights
• Capabilities of military UAS with regard to range and endurance
• Identification of UAS that are, or can be, armed
• Company partnerships
• Future product announcements and/or pending upgrades to current platforms
• Various manufacturing agreements and contract announcements
• Links to corporate websites and news items of note
• Links to UAS product pages, where applicable

Key Questions That This Study Will Answer:
• Which companies are manufacturing military UAS?
• What platforms are being marketed and which are in the development phase?
• What platforms do listed companies manufacture and what class of UAS are they?
• Which militaries are buying UAS from which suppliers?
• What are some trends among military UAS suppliers?

This research service also contains definitions of UAS for both the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) classification systems, a few regional insights, and a succinct conclusions section that highlights the trends in the market.