US radar maker Echodyne mulls European production as drone warfare fuels demand

KIELCE, Poland — U.S. radar maker Echodyne has announced that Norway’s Kongsberg has selected its MESA radar platform for a broad range of air and surface applications.

Echodyne opened a manufacturing facility in Washington state last July, and is considering establishing a manufacturing presence in Europe to benefit from the booming counter-drone market there.

Eben Frankenberg, the company’s CEO, told Defense News at the MSPO defense show here that Echodyne has longstanding cooperation with Kongsberg. The integration of its radars into the company’s Protector RS4 and Protector RS6 remote weapon stations will further increase Echodyne’s visibility in European markets, he said.

Echodyne’s solutions will make “those remote weapon stations, which weren’t originally designed to counter drone threats, effective at countering drone threats,” Frankenberg said. “And this is something we do with a lot of companies.”

With a surging demand for miniaturized radars that ensure detection and fire-control support for various counter-drone systems in Europe, Echodyne is also considering investing in establishing a manufacturing presence in Europe.

“There’s obviously a big European demand and there’s rightfully some interest from European countries in having more local content,” the CEO said. “We’re thinking about where it would make the most sense.”

In July 2026, Echodyne said it opened an 86,350-square-foot facility under a $40 million investment. The U.S. plant will eventually be able to produce more than 30,000 radar systems per year, according to data from Echodyne.

“Part of the plan with the new facility was that it gives us a template or blueprint to be able to open other new facilities in the future. Because now we know exactly all the machines we need to have, all the workstations, the number of people to equip them,” Frankenberg said. “So it does set us up for that in the future.”