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MARSS secures United Kingdom Export Finance support for a landmark African nation expeditionary command and control surveillance program exceeding $175M

The multi-year programme will be one of the largest UK defence programs for Africa supported by UKEF< delivering expeditionary Command and Control Platforms, regional command centres, and a new 360° National Command Centre integrating legacy systems  with state of the art sensor and effector technology to protect the nation against Air and Land asymmetric threats.

MARSS has received a Letter of Intent for a  multi-year programme with an African nation to provide their NiDAR surveillance solution to protect lives and assets from Land and Air asymmetric threats.

Backed by UK Export Finance (UKEF), this programme is one of MARSS’ largest projects  to date, and will see the defence technology specialist leading as the prime working with local partners to deliver a critical multi-domain defence architecture to support a national defence agency in counter-terrorism operations..

The program marks a significant commitment to one of the first national-scale adoptions of AI-enabled C4I in Africa.

MARSS Asterix Fleet

A fleet of almost 30 command and effector platforms will be equipped with an array of radars and sensors, all brought together by MARSS’ ground-breaking NiDAR C4I system. The programme scope will also include unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles (UAVs), , being integrated into NiDAR via their newly released Autonomous Mission Management (AMM) module to allow intelligent aerial reconnaissance in hostile and contested areas where it is unsafe to deploy ground resources.

MARSS will deliver and integrate NiDAR across multiple new regional command centres and a national command centre. These facilities will be networked to receive live feeds fusing data from established fixed legacy systems and the fleet of expeditionary vehicles with UAVs deployed from forward operating bases where they are needed most creating an integrated multidomain air and land  surveillance picture.

The cross-nation, multi-location deployment of NiDAR will enable expeditionary vehicles, UAVs, and regional and national hubs to receive unified resources and data, allowing for faster and more accurate decision-making at tactical, operational, and strategic levels.

Rob Balloch, Chief Growth Officer at MARSS said: “This is a landmark programme for MARSS, by integrating expeditionary vehicles, regional centres, and a new national headquarters into a single C4I architecture, NiDAR will provide a layered defence capability that is both scalable and future-proof in the fight against terrorism.”

“The backing of UK Export Finance is a huge endorsement of MARSS UK and our wider group operations and ensures we can deliver this critical capability with confidence.”

NiDAR is already in operation across more than 50 sites globally - including numerous military ports and critical infrastructure sites - is deployed with the Royal Canadian Navy’s CSS Asterix, and is being installed on multiple corvette-class combat ships operated by a Southeast Asian naval force. This latest contract is a further indication of how NiDAR’s AI-enabled C4I capability can be scaled to create a single, coherent operating picture from tactical deployments right through to strategic, national-level command.

To see the unique capabilities of NiDAR in action, visit MARSS in the Tech Zone, on stand S13-305, during DSEI UK 2025, from Tuesday 9 - Friday 13 September.

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