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As governments around the world accelerate investment in counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) and short-range air defense, Echodyne today announced the opening of a new advanced radar manufacturing facility in Washington State, significantly expanding its manufacturing capacity to meet rapidly growing demand from U.S. and allied customers.
With millions of drones manufactured and used by both sides in the Russian War in Ukraine, the need for enhanced safety for defense, national security, and critical infrastructure assets grows with every successful strike and interception. The low cost and high utility of drones dramatically alters the need for safety and security sensors. And as the low altitude economy takes off, hundreds of thousands of drones will perform a range of life-saving and commercial missions, requiring a sensor infrastructure to monitor airspace activity.
The new 86,350-square-foot facility is a major step in readying supply for multiple, large, global markets. The company has begun end-to-end manufacturing operations which will eventually be able to produce more than 30,000 radars annually - equivalent to more than 2,500 radars each month.
Over the coming months, Echodyne will transition all manufacturing operations from its headquarters to the new site, creating a dedicated manufacturing and operations hub capable of supporting sustained production growth across its radar portfolio. The company’s $40 M investment in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility is complemented by more than 100 new jobs and up to 200 as the facility reaches full production capacity.
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“Our global customer base is demanding more radar to be delivered as fast as possible,” said Eben Frankenberg, CEO of Echodyne. “Drones are driving significant change in both enabling a drone economy and in defending against nefarious drone use. While radar performance will always be the dominant consideration, product availability both now and in a predictable and consistent manner over time is quickly becoming a requirement for any global supplier. The only way to defend against mass is with mass. That requires not just high-performance economical radars, but the ability to manufacture them at scale."
Demand for high-performance radar continues to grow across a broad range of applications including counter-UAS, force protection, border security, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, protection of critical infrastructure, and beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations for autonomous systems.
Unlike conventional electronically scanned array radars that rely on thousands of phase shifters, Echodyne's patented Metamaterials Electronically Scanned Array (MESA®) architecture achieves electronic beam steering through a fundamentally simpler design. Manufactured using standard materials and scalable commercial processes, the technology delivers high-fidelity radar performance while reducing the size, weight, power, complexity and cost traditionally associated with electronically scanned array radar. The result is a compact, software-defined, commercially exportable product designed not only for performance, but for manufacturability at commercial scale.
The new facility provides approximately 74,350 square feet of manufacturing space and 12,000 square feet of warehousing, enabling production to flex across multiple radar product lines while supporting future product introductions.
That same design philosophy extends into manufacturing. Rather than relying on traditional low-volume defense production, Echodyne's manufacturing approach combines breakthrough radar technology with commercially scalable production techniques. The simplicity of the company's MESA architecture was engineered not only to deliver exceptional radar performance, but also to maximize manufacturability, allowing production to scale efficiently using commercial manufacturing methods while maintaining consistent quality. The company's modular approach enables manufacturing capacity to flex across product lines, rapidly introduce new capabilities and respond quickly to changing customer demand.
Recent program awards and growing international demand underscore the need for expanded manufacturing capacity. Echodyne's radar technology is integrated into hundreds of defense and security systems worldwide and supports platforms developed by leading defense companies including Anduril, Axon, Moog, and Northrop Grumman Corporation.
Most recently, the company was selected as the primary radar provider for Trust Automation's Small UAS Detection System (SUADS) platform, which is being delivered to the U.S. Air Force under a $490 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract.
The company expects to continue expanding its workforce as manufacturing operations scale.
