DSEI UK 2025: Profiling the NiDAR C2 system from MARSS

The technology company MARSS came to DSEI UK determined to demonstrate the flexibility of its command and control (C2) platform, NiDAR. The company issued no fewer than five press releases covering a new integration with the THeMIS UGV, interceptors from Frankenburg, and developments to NiDAR that are designed to provide strategic situational awareness – at a national level. Calibre Defence met with Robbie Draper, Director of Operations at MARSS, to learn more about the company’s approach and the new developments. 

“We’re integrating many different sensors and effectors that generally don’t come from our company,” he explained at the MARSS stand. They had brought an ISO container which allowed visitors to simulate an engagement against a threat drone. “Ultimately, we are a system of systems integrator. The customer wants you to take the lead and be the prime, which means integrating OEM products like the Frankenburg interceptors,” Robbie said. 

The MARSS NiDAR is used to fuse sensor inputs into a single operational picture and support a user by recommending the most appropriate response. It is already in use in over 50 sites around the world, Robbie told me, as he initiated a simulation on the large touch screen control panel. 

“NiDAR allows users to quickly escalate a threat and share it with other users and then select interceptors with some indication of range and capability,” Robbie proceeded, showing me on the large screen how range circles appeared from a harbour in North Africa in response to a rogue drone. He also switched between sensors, cuing a long-range camera to observe a drone approaching the coast that had been detected by radar. The company has also developed the ability to deploy NiDAR down to the tactical level, as well as at the national strategic level. “Operated from a 360° Command Centre, senior decision-makers can oversee all strategic sites within a single room, powered with AI-enhanced threat detection, identification, and prioritisation,” that September 11 press release explains. This is designed to enable an MoD or government to maintain central control over the security of key facilities and infrastructure, or at least a centrally recognised situational awareness of those locations.

The MoU with Frankenburg, which was signed during DSEI, has the goal of integrating the company’s low cost interceptor missiles into NiDAR for instance, which would then suggest the most appropriate response to a given threat. MARSS also has its own interceptor, simply called INTERCEPTOR MR (Medium Range). The company announced during DSEI, that it had “successfully completed flight testing of its latest aircraft design, incorporating significant upgrades to its hardware and targeting algorithms during ongoing trials in the UK.” Robbie was quick to emphasise, however, that most of the work that the company does is with sensors and effectors that are not their own. “Most of the work to date has been developing the next thing that the client wants,” he said. 

THeMIS UGV from Milrem on the MARSS stand at DSEI UK 2025. The missiles from Frankenburg are shown on top of the furthest track. Credit: Calibre Defence.

The INTERCEPTOR MR has a range in excess of 5 km and carries no warhead, indicating a kinetic interception method. This helps countries justify its use in urban and populated areas, because there is no explosive or fragmentation, but does place a premium on the targeting algorithms. Indeed, this was the focus of the latest developments, MARSS explained in a September 9 press release. “Having reached fully autonomous flight status in early 2024, large-scale upgrades and enhancements to INTERCEPTOR’s targeting algorithms…have driven a major leap forward in system maturity and targeting accuracy,” it states.

The final element of NiDAR announced at DSEI UK 2025, is the autonomous platform control capability. “We’re also addressing a very real and pressing challenge, which is how the MoD, our armed forces, and our allies can do more with fewer personnel. NiDAR can shoulder the burden of several specialist operators, bridging that gap which could otherwise emerge with fewer resources,” Johannes Pinl, Founder and CEO of MARSS, said in a September 8 press release. That announcement covered the ability of NiDAR to control effectors, as well as provide situational awareness. 

This is a worthwhile distinction. Some systems will provide a recognised picture by fusing different sensors into a single picture. This is sometimes used for air defence, airspace deconfliction, and maritime interdiction. It helps decision-makers in two different places see and understand the situation from the same information. But NiDAR, and other systems like Cobalt from Arondite and the IBCS from Northrop Grumman (for uncrewed platforms and air defence respectively), provide that awareness along with options to act upon the fused data. 

In a nutshell, the autonomous mission management aspect of NiDAR allows users to integrate different uncrewed platforms into the system and task them. The capability was illustrated by the THeMIS UGV positioned prominently on the MARSS stand. “THeMIS is illustrative of what can be done, and the next thing is USVs. It’s all about lessening the user burden,” Robbie explained. As an example, he discussed a scenario in which user sites are bordered by mountains. “Alarms and sensors could frequently be triggered by goats,” he said, “and if you send a couple of guys out to check every time, that can take hours, and it costs a lot,” he added. The idea is that combining uncrewed platforms into NiDAR’s response options would provide users with breadth and depth when responding to an evolving situation. They could, for example, dispatch a THeMIS to inspect a given alert and determine whether or not a human response is required. 

Calibre comment

A healthy market is emerging around combined platforms that offer command and control as well as sensor fusion. There are now several companies offering autonomous mission management capabilities that enable the move to the “one-to-many” paradigm that MoD’s are seeking. The MARSS NiDAR system may have a potential edge in that it is operationally proven, and has evolved from a system developed for anti-piracy operations. Either way, a lot of choice in this field of capabilities should be a good thing for NATO MoDs. It provides them with options and the opportunity to conduct competitive assessments. 

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on September 19, 2025. Credit for the lead image is MARSS.