Denel has been contracted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to provide technical support for the Emirates Seeker drones fleet.
The contract valued at $1.5 million (R23 million) will see Denel Dynamics handle most of the technical support for the Emirates’ Seeker UAVs. The agreement was signed on Monday, February 21, the first day of the UMEX & SimTEX 2022 exhibition being held in Abu Dhabi.
The UMEX & SimTEX was organized by Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC) in cooperation with the UAE Ministry of Defence.
The Emirates operates several Seeker UAVs in different variations including Seeker II acquired in the 1990s and 2000s, Seeker 200s in 2017, and six Seeker 400 armed drones in 2018.
Most recently, in March last year, at the first day of the International Defence Exhibition (IDEX) and the Naval Defence Exhibition (NAVDEX) 2021, the UAE Armed Forces signed a deal with Denel SOC, trading as Denel Dynamics, to provide a Seeker 400 unmanned drone system to the Presidential Guard Command with a value of AED 50,000,000 ($13,612,775.00).
Earlier on, in 2020 the UAE ordered AED25 821 190 (R105 million) worth of Seeker 400s March 2020. At the time, Denel showcased a variant of its Seeker 400 UAV, which featured an enlarged nose for a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and hump above the wing for beyond line of sight satellite communications link. It was also fitted with two surface-to-air missiles.