SOFEX 2024 has recently cloesd its doors on what has been reported to be another successful exhibition. SOFEX, organised every two years, atracts delegations and exhibitors from accross the world and has grown a reputation as a a cornerstone event for special operations and homeland security.
Many countries and companies attending were aware of the regional interest in protecting critical national infastructure, including ports and airports and the growing challenges of drones which are used in the region, both in defence and also civilian environments.
Managing the challenges of drones when used by adversaries for ill-intent is an ongoing issue as countries grapple to find solutions that are technologically advanced yet affordable to manage current and emerging threats from drones.
One company who is involved in this important field is Advanced Protection Systems (APS) who attended SOFEX 2024 to reflect the importance of the exhibition and its role and significance in the region. It was also important to show APS’s ongoing and unwavering commitment to current customers and, desire to attract future opportunities and promote their industrial strategy of joint ventures with companies in the Middle East.
Advanced Protection Systems (APS) is a provider of military grade 3D MIMO radars (FIELDctrl) and comprehensive anti-drone system (SKYctrl) – in 2023 winning the award of the President of the Republic of Poland in the International Success category during the 590 Congress in Rzeszów. In 2022 APS received the Operational Commander’s award in the category ‘Survival and protection of troops,’ for the SKYctrl container anti-unmanned aerial vehicle system.
History of APS
It is important to recall how the Gdynia-based company in Poland came to these successes.
APS operate in the military and security industry, so by nature they do not promote what they do to the public. So far, we have not tried to make ourselves known, now we want to change and talk more about it,” said Maciej Klemm, PhD, President of APS and its co-founder, during the presentation of the company’s achievements. We are sure that what we are doing is important for the Polish state and interesting for the public. On the other hand, as the founders of the company, we are proud of it and we will be more willing to talk about it – emphasizes President Klemm.
APS was founded in 2015 by Dr Maciej Klemm and Dr Radosław Piesiewicz. Both have technical education. They studied together at the Gdańsk University of Technology at the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics, specialising in microwave and antenna engineering. That’s where they met. After achieving their master’s degrees, they went abroad.
Maciej Klemm, PhD, achieved his doctoral thesis at the prestigious ETH Zurich, whose educational strategy was in health and medicine. After his PhD, he continued to work on radar technologies at the University of Bristol for almost 10 years. His research was in applied medicine. He developed a scanner to detect breast cancer, for which he received a gold medal in 2007 from the former British Prime Minister, Sir Tony Blair.
Dr Radosław Piesiewicz achieved his doctoral thesis at the Technical University of Braunschweig, and later took the position of head of the research institute in Trento, Italy, where he dealt with advanced very high frequency electronics.
Both had careers – they could have stayed and worked abroad. However, they decided otherwise. They returned to Poland with their ideas.
“At that time at the academic level we were in touch. We have done a lot in advanced technology projects for the space industry. At some point, we came to the conclusion that what we do there can be done in Poland as well. To build modern, most advanced technologies in the country. And that’s how it all started,” recalls Dr Radosław Piesiewicz, co-founder of the company, chief operating officer of APS.
The idea that determined the direction of the company’s development was born in 2014 after Radosław Piesiewicz read information about a drone that approached a French nuclear power plant unnoticed. It could carry a bomb with impunity and, disturbed by anyone, drop it on a power plant, causing a cataclysm.
“These are small systems with a small reflecting surface, but radar should be able to detect them. We wrote an application for a grant from the European Commission and obtained the first funds to set up a company and develop radar technologies,” reminds President Maciej Klemm.
In 2015, APS was established. They were one of the first to enter the niche of radar systems detecting drones. Years later, it turned out that it was the right move.
Ten years ago, APS foresaw the inevitable, namely the special role of drones, which could pose a threat that was not sufficiently perceived at the time. They have developed anti-drone technology and now have implementations globally.
“The war in Ukraine has shown that without anti-drone protection, you lose,” emphasizes Dr Radosław Piesiewicz.
APS received several grants from the National Center for Research and Development, supported by the so-called business angels. An important turning point in the company’s development was the acquisition of a minority stake by the Enterprise Investors Fund in 2023. This significantly strengthened the company’s position in the international market. A year later, in the first quarter of 2024, the company entered into an agreement with the Prince Sultan Defence Studies & Research Center (PSDSARC) from Saudi Arabia, an important government institution tasked with strengthening the country’s defense capabilities by providing advanced technologies. Among others, the most important ones today, radar drones, strengthening air defense, ensuring effective combat against air threats, i.e. unmanned aerial vehicles, especially the smallest ones.
“This was a landmark agreement for our company,” said Dr Maciej Klemm CEO APS, “Which after years of research, development and creation of innovative products, we will now also be committed to technology transfer.”
APS Technology Development
APS is constantly developing new technologies. Currently, these are technologically advanced solutions that enable detection, classification and constant observation of many objects at the same time. We are investing in the development of new radar systems currently using more than 20 different parameters. APS also plan to implement the most advanced artificial intelligence algorithms and machine learning techniques, which will further increase the precision of our systems,” says CEO Klemm about the innovativeness of the systems produced by the company.
APS has gained recognition in the market with the production of FIELDctrl 3D MIMO radars. It precisely and accurately displays real-time information such distance, speed, angle and height, which gives them a competitive advantage. They are able to track multiple aerial objects at the same time and can detect all classes of drones – even micro-drones at a distance of 6 km, as well as swarms of drones and hovering drones. They have several radars in their portfolio: Advance, which detects and classifies micro-UAV at a distance of 3 km, flying even at a height of 1 m, or hovering. The Range radar, has a detection range of 5 km and the Runway radar, detects objects at a distance of 8 km. The latest APS product is the Ultra radar, with a range twice as long as the Advance, i.e. 6 km. It is also twice as large and heavier, weighing 65 kg.
Based on its FIELDctrl 3D MIMO radars, APS produces entire anti-drone systems, SKYctrl. The SKYctrl integrated anti-drone system, several of which were purchased by the Polish Ministry of Defense under a contract concluded with APS in May 2022, are known. The systems have already been delivered under this contract and forms a significant part of the multi-layered air defence currently under construction in the Wisła, Narew and Pilica projects. SKYctrl also protects German Patriots stationed in Poland.
In addition to valuable assets and the military, APS systems protect critical infrastructure facilities, the airspace of power plants, refineries, and telecommunications networks. Over the past 10 years, APS has implemented about 75 anti-drone projects around the world, across 24 countries; in Europe (e.g. Norway, Estonia, Finland, Czech Republic), the Middle East (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) and Asia (South Korea, Singapore and India).
SKYctrl anti-drone systems protect key critical infrastructure facilities and large public events such as Aerobaltic and AirShows. They also monitor national borders, where, for example, the smuggling of cigarettes or drugs by drones has long been a widespread practice. SKYctrl is also used to prevent UAVs from bringing in contrabands into prisons (e.g., in Tallinna Vangla) or to monitor the movement of birds and drones at Stavanger Airport, Norway.
The MSI-DS Terrahawk Paladin system, developed jointly with a British partner, was delivered to Ukraine as part of the £100 million support package provided by the UK government to Ukraine, where it is used to protect military and civilian targets. The whole system is managed by the network-centric CyView C2 command and control system, also developed by the Gdynia-based company, which currently allows four SKYctrl platforms to be networked together into a single node, which can be managed from any of the networked SKYctrl platforms via a MASTER or SLAVE relationship. This increases the survivability of platforms on the battlefield.
“APS devices already allow for error-free classification of detected objects in real time, even the smallest ones. They can, for example, distinguish a drone from a bird, which gives them a significant advantage over competitive solutions. In addition, the entire technology offered by APS, from designs to manufactured systems, including software and signal processing algorithms, is developed and manufactured by the company in-house,” emphasises Maciej Klemm, PhD.
“This is a new offer, but the growing use of drones in warfare, especially by Russia, shows that there is an urgent and huge demand for this type of technology,” emphasizes Dr Radosław Piesiewicz.
Out of about 170 people employed in the company, more than a hundred are a group of scientists, engineers and programmers, as well as technological and military experts. APS also cooperates with many sub-suppliers from Poland, mainly from the Tri-City, as well as foreign partners.
“APS have plans to grow the company until 2030, but their ambitions go much further We will deepen our international expansion with an emphasis on supplying anti-drone systems to the armed forces of NATO countries,” says Dr Klemm.
And these are not wishful declarations. The company’s revenues in 2023, compared to 2021, increased dozens of times. The company’s revenues in 2024 are planned to be twice as high. They sell half of their products abroad. The demand for these devices, due to the war in Ukraine and the constantly appearing new hot spots, is constantly growing.