Echodyne joins $490M U.S. Air Force counter-drone program

Kirkland-based Echodyne announced Monday at the Counter UAS Technology Europe 2026 conference in London that its EchoShield radar has been selected as the primary radar system within Trust Automation’s Small-Unmanned Air Defense System, known as SUADS — a counter-drone platform being delivered to the U.S. Air Force under a $490 million indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract awarded in August 2025.

The SUADS family encompasses three distinct platform configurations, each tailored to a different operational environment. The Rapidly Deployable SUADS, or RD-SUADS, is a self-contained, self-powered system fitted to standard pallet sizes for transport aboard military aircraft — designed for rapid response deployment wherever the threat emerges. The Fixed Site SUADS, or FS-SUADS, is built for permanent military installations and can be configured as a standalone unit or integrated into a networked group, providing 360-degree base protection with redundant coverage. Rounding out the family is the Expeditionary SUADS, or EX-SUADS, a detection-only variant sized to fit within standard cases transportable in larger SUV-class vehicles, designed for checked baggage-style transport in the most austere conditions.

All three variants are built to conform with the Sensor Open Systems Architecture, known as SOSA, standard — and Echodyne’s EchoShield radars represent the first fully integrated SOSA solution within the SUADS platform. That open-architecture compliance is increasingly a prerequisite for new defense electronics, allowing the government to swap or upgrade components without being locked into a single vendor’s proprietary ecosystem.

EchoShield is Echodyne’s flagship medium-range radar, built as a commercial-off-the-shelf system with industry-standard interfaces that allow it to feed data to a range of downstream sensors and effectors. The system is designed to generate precise location data across all drone types and configurations — fixed-wing, rotary, and hybrid — and uses machine learning models built on recursive neural networks to classify tracked objects and distinguish actual threats from background clutter. That classification capability matters: in a contested airspace environment, the speed and accuracy with which a system can separate a hostile drone from a bird, a balloon, or a friendly asset directly determines how quickly an operator can authorize an intercept.

Beyond simple detection, EchoShield’s data outputs are structured to more accurately cue optical sensors — essentially telling a camera exactly where to point — and to accelerate the handoff to kinetic or electronic effectors responsible for neutralizing the threat. The faster that data chain runs, the greater the probability of a successful intercept before the drone closes to within effective range.

Eben Frankenberg, CEO of Echodyne, framed the selection around a fundamental shift in what the counter-drone market now demands from radar. “It is becoming more and more evident that the fidelity of radar data, its accuracy in all data dimensions, is a critical attribute of any radar system,” Frankenberg said. “The new table stakes for every defensive system is actionable data at the range of reaction and with the precision to consistently direct kinetic effectors onto fast, nimble, UAS threats.”

Ty Safreno, CEO of Trust Automation, was equally direct about what the Echodyne integration brings to the SUADS platform. “Integrating Echodyne’s advanced radar into our RD-SUADS, FS-SUADS, and EX-SUADS systems enhances both detection range and accuracy, enabling operators to identify threats sooner and respond with greater confidence,” Safreno said. “These systems provide agile, comprehensive C-sUAS capability that helps protect warfighters and critical facilities through elevated situational awareness.”

The $490 million IDIQ vehicle, announced last August, positions SUADS as a scalable procurement mechanism — meaning the Air Force can order systems in varying quantities and configurations over the life of the contract rather than committing to a single fixed buy.

With drone threats now a persistent reality across virtually every theater of operations — from contested peer-competitor scenarios in the Pacific to irregular warfare environments in the Middle East and Eastern Europe — programs like SUADS represent the Air Force’s effort to field layered, scalable base defense that doesn’t require the footprint or cost of legacy air defense systems designed for manned aircraft and ballistic missiles.