EDGE and Baykar To Collaborate On Payload Integration Into Bayraktar UAVs
The United Arab Emirates-based technology and defense company EDGE Group is working with Turkey’s leading unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturer Baykar Defense to integrate the Desert Sting precision-guided munition family with Bayraktar Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).
The two companies’ integration program officially began on November 17 with the deployment of EDGE’s DESERT STING 16 precision guided munition onto the Bayraktar TB2 UAV. EDGE announced this important step via a post on the X platform. The post featured test flight footage of the Turkish unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with UAE munitions and highlighted the two companies’ successful collaboration.
EDGE Chairman of the Board of Directors Faisal Al Bannai commented on the development, saying, “At EDGE, we are proud to be partnering with Baykar, a leading company in advanced unmanned aerial systems. The opportunity to add to both companies’ capabilities is an important milestone in our partnership.”
Selçuk Bayraktar, Chairman and CTO of Baykar, added: “Integration of the DESERT STING 16 and other EDGE weapons and systems will be valuable options in our UAV payload offerings. Our strategic alliance agreement with EDGE, an international leader in advanced technology, will provide further options to our client base.”
This development is part of the Strategic Alliance Agreement, which Edge and Baykar signed in October 2023. In the future, the two companies will integrate additional payloads into different Baykar vehicles to strengthen their partnership under the Strategic Alliance Agreement and promote mutually beneficial collaboration.
The Desert Sting munitions family includes three guided munitions: Desert Sting 8, Desert Sting 16, and Desert Sting 25. These munitions employ a guidance system that includes a GNSS-supported INS (Global Navigation Satellite System Assisted Inertial Navigation System) and a SAL (Semi-Active Laser) seeker head. When used together, GNSS and the SAL seeker head provide a CEP (Circular Error Probable) accuracy of 3 m, whereas GNSS alone provides a CEP of 10 meters. Desert Stings 8 and 16 have a range of 16 kilometers, whereas Desert Sting 25 has a range of 14 kilometers. These munitions have differing masses, with DS-8 weighing 15 kg, DS-16 weighing 23 kg, and DS-25 weighing 45kg. Warhead sizes also differ: the warheads of DS-8, DS-16, and DS-25 weigh 7, kg, 15 kg, and 25 kg, respectively. The explosive mechanism involves the impact or detonation altitude and the release altitude for these precision weapons is set to 30,000 feet.