On Friday, 21 November 2025, the European consortium MBDA announced that it had signed a contract with an undisclosed Middle Eastern country for the delivery of the Sky Warden counter-drone system. This is the first contract for the supply of this latest system.
Image: MBDA
Lorenzo Mariani, MBDA Executive Group Sales and Business Development, said:
“Signing this export contract marks a crucial step in our commitment to ensuring the security and sovereignty of our partners around the world. SKY WARDEN provides an innovative and comprehensive response to the challenges posed by asymmetric air threats. This unique drone-fighting system combines state-of-the-art technology, unprecedented flexibility, and a constantly evolving capability. With SKY WARDEN, we offer our customers robust and adaptable protection against all UAV threats, today and tomorrow.”
Sky Warden — for which MBDA received the 2025 Frontex C-UAS Prize from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) and which was recognized as the best EU border-protection system — is a comprehensive, multilayer counter-UAS system that protects an area against threats ranging from micro-drones to tactical drones within an 8 km radius. The solution is an evolution and enhancement of MBDA’s multi-sensor, multi-effector command-and-control (C2) system, enabling precise detection, identification, and classification of threats through the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Sky Warden offers a broad range of complementary effectors designed to counter and neutralize hostile drones, including the Cilas Helma-P 2 kW laser weapon system, the MC2 Technologies Majes DFB-6 electronic warfare system (directional and omnidirectional ECM), Akeron MP missiles, interceptor drones such as the Fortem Technologies DroneHunter F700 with a net-capture launcher or the kinetic MBDA HTK (Hit-to-Kill) drone developed in cooperation with SME Novadem, and the Mistral 3 missile interceptor, which boasts an effectiveness rate exceeding 96%.
Sensors — such as the Cerbair Hydra 300 direction finder, the Exavision Seamos-MR-5K electro-optical turret, and the DSR RADA Technologies MHR hemispheric radar — along with the effectors listed above, are selected based on performance and mission requirements. Sky Warden is therefore a scalable system ideally suited to countering asymmetric air threats, both present and future.
Sky Warden can evolve over time, adapting to user needs and shifting threat environments thanks to its fully modular architecture and easy integration of new effectors. The system is highly flexible — it can be deployed as a stationary installation or mounted on vehicles for mobile protection. It can also be integrated with medium-range air defense systems such as VL MICA or CAMM-ER, or tied into higher-tier defense networks.
Development of the Sky Warden system is ongoing. This is demonstrated by MBDA’s recent acquisition and integration of the Helma-P laser weapon system from Cilas, further expanding the range of effectors available within the system.
The Sky Warden concept was unveiled on 21 February 2021, with project updates released on 15 March 2023 and 23 July 2024.
🚀 Big news from MBDA!
We’ve signed our first export contract for the #SKYWARDEN counter-UAV system with a Middle Eastern partner 🌍
A major step in protecting our partners’ security & sovereignty worldwide 💪
🗞️ https://t.co/lUknAED4vr#MBDA #Defence #Innovation pic.twitter.com/Kij0BXnbrp— MBDA (@MBDAGroup) November 24, 2025
