Middle East: Calidus, Hameem Technologies and Aergility Sign Agreement To Produce Unmanned VTOL Aircraft in UAE

Calidus Hold­ing Group, Hameem Tech­nolo­gies and Aergili­ty have announced a strate­gic part­ner­ship to devel­op and pro­duce the ALRASID and ALTARESH unmanned VTOL air­craft, which has been designed for intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance (ISR) and logis­tics mis­sions.

Enabled by unmanned air trans­port, the air­craft will pro­vide a reli­able capa­bil­i­ty for sup­ply and pay­load deliv­ery, enhanc­ing oper­a­tional con­ti­nu­ity and improv­ing the effi­cien­cy of field sup­port, with pro­duc­tion tak­ing place at Calidus’ facil­i­ties in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The announce­ment was made on the side­lines of the sev­enth edi­tion of UMEX and Sim­TEX 2026, organ­ised by ADNEC Group in asso­ci­a­tion with the Min­istry of Defence at ADNEC Cen­tre Abu Dhabi.

Dr. Khal­i­fa Murad Alblooshi, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor and CEO of Calidus Hold­ing Group said: “This part­ner­ship reflects the Group’s lead­er­ship as a ful­ly inte­grat­ed defence and man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny while under­scor­ing the strength of the UAE’s indus­tri­al ecosys­tem.

“By align­ing strate­gic invest­ment, local pro­duc­tion, and break­through inno­va­tion, we are not only show­cas­ing advanced plat­forms but also demon­strat­ing our abil­i­ty to deliv­er sov­er­eign capa­bil­i­ties at scale, devel­oped and man­u­fac­tured in the UAE to the high­est glob­al stan­dards — in line with the wise leadership’s vision for advanc­ing nation­al defence indus­tries.”

Calidus Hold­ing Group was found­ed in 2015 and is head­quar­tered in Abu Dhabi, UAE. With a focus on deliv­er­ing next-gen­er­a­tion cut­ting-edge solu­tions tai­lored to defence and secu­ri­ty mar­kets across its three clus­ters – Aero­space, Land Sys­tems and Mis­siles and Defence Sys­tems – Calidus designs, engi­neers, and
pro­duces advanced plat­forms that enhance mobil­i­ty, pro­tec­tion, and mis­sion eJec­tive­ness across diverse oper­a­tional envi­ron­ments.

ALTARESH is the mid-size VTOL plat­form with the scal­able tech­nol­o­gy capa­ble of car­ry­ing up to 500lbs more than 500 miles, mak­ing it ide­al for long-range autonomous logis­tics and oper­a­tional sup­port. ALRASID is a com­pact pro­to­type designed for intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance mis­sions, pro­vid­ing per­sis­tent, flex­i­ble aer­i­al cov­er­age in demand­ing envi­ron­ments.

The mod­els are scal­able to mis­sion depth: con­test­ed logis­tics, ISR, crit­i­cal resup­ply, dis­as­ter response, and med­ical sup­port, amongst oth­ers. All mod­els can be con­fig­ured with addi­tion­al sen­sors, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, edge auton­o­my and AI sys­tems, in line with the com­pa­nies com­mit­ment to air­craft with sim­ple oper­a­tion and cost-effec­tive through-life sup­port.

Hameem Tech­nolo­gies LLC is a com­pa­ny, based in Abu Dhabi, ded­i­cat­ed to advanc­ing sci­en­tif­ic and tech­ni­cal break­throughs in mul­ti­ple domains through strate­gic invest­ment and tar­get­ed part­ner­ships. This is in line with Hameem’s man­date to sup­port the advance­ment of the UAE’s nation­al indus­try.

Dr. Ahmed Daghash Aljaberi, CEO of Hameem Tech­nolo­gies said: “We are com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing advanced tech­nolo­gies from the ear­li­est stages of inno­va­tion, with the goal of trans­fer­ring knowl­edge, local­is­ing mod­ern tech­nolo­gies and con­tribut­ing to the growth of the UAE’s nation­al man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ties in line with the ‘We Are the UAE 2031’ vision to estab­lish the coun­try as a glob­al hub for tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion.

“This part­ner­ship aligns with our goal to posi­tion Hameem Tech­nolo­gies as a leader in strate­gic tech­nol­o­gy invest­ments. We are lever­ag­ing the UAE’s glob­al posi­tion and the wide range of invest­ment and fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able in var­i­ous tech­ni­cal fields to advance future tech­nolo­gies.”

Aergili­ty is a pio­neer­ing aero­space engi­neer­ing firm defin­ing the future of unmanned car­go deliv­ery. Its autonomous and scal­able UAV tech­nol­o­gy, based on Man­aged Autoro­ta­tion℗, com­bines the ver­ti­cal take-oJ and land­ing ver­sa­til­i­ty of a heli­copter with the eJi­cient inflight per­for­mance of a fixed wing air­craft.

The com­pa­ny deliv­ers indus­try-lead­ing tech­nolo­gies that are sim­ple to oper­ate and main­tain, require min­i­mal infra­struc­ture, and fea­ture few mov­ing parts — mak­ing them high­ly reli­able and cost- eJec­tive to run.

Nick Hall, CEO of Aergili­ty, added: “We are excit­ed to deep­en Aergility’s part­ner­ship with Calidus and Hameem Tech­nolo­gies as ear­ly investors in our com­pa­ny and as key part­ners in bring­ing our scal­able Man­aged Autoro­ta­tion tech­nol­o­gy to the UAE.

“Togeth­er, we are local­is­ing pro­duc­tion in Abu Dhabi of a tru­ly unique capa­bil­i­ty that deliv­ers the ver­sa­til­i­ty of a heli­copter with the eFi­cien­cy of a fixed-wing plane, with­out the com­plex­i­ty and infra­struc­ture bur­den of con­ven­tion­al VTOL sys­tems.

“This cre­ates sim­ple, cost-eFec­tive autonomous plat­forms for both defence and com­mer­cial mis­sions at scale, fur­ther posi­tion­ing the UAE as a glob­al hub for these next gen­er­a­tion plat­forms.”

Calidus Hold­ing Group was found­ed in 2015 and is head­quar­tered in Abu Dhabi, UAE. With a focus on deliv­er­ing next-gen­er­a­tion cut­ting-edge solu­tions tai­lored to defence and secu­ri­ty mar­kets across its three clus­ters – Aero­space, Land Sys­tems and Mis­siles and Defence Sys­tems – Calidus designs, engi­neers, and
pro­duces advanced plat­forms that enhance mobil­i­ty, pro­tec­tion, and mis­sion eJec­tive­ness across diverse oper­a­tional envi­ron­ments.