German C-UAS specialist Alpine Eagle announces expansion into UK

German counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) specialist Alpine Eagle announced on 24 July 2025 that it is expanding to the UK and has hired former Royal Navy officer Michael Golden to head up its operations there.

The move follows Alpine Eagle’s recent participation in Project Vanaheim: a joint US/UK initiative launched in March 2025 designed to produce a more effective and robust approach to procuring C-UAS capabilities.

It also follows the Trinity House Agreement, signed by the UK and Germany on 23 October 2024, that will see the two countries working together on a range of ground-breaking defence projects.

Alpine Eagle claims it is the creator of “the world’s first air-to-air counter-drone system” in the form of the company’s Sentinel system. This uses multiple sensor-equipped unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to overcome the terrain restrictions experienced by ground-based sensors to detect and classify threats from small drones, micro-UAVs and loitering munitions, enabling their interception at a stand-off distance by cueing ground-based effectors.

Citing a report by Straits Research that asserts the military drone market is set to double in value from USD 21.8 billion (EUR 18.76 billion) in 2024 to USD 56.69 by 2033, Alpine Eagle stated, “Despite this growth, governments around the world are still grappling with a critical capability gap when it comes to effective counter-drone systems that can be deployed at scale to protect both militaries and critical national infrastructure. … Alpine Eagle is one of the few companies developing cost-effective solutions to defend against this rapidly growing threat.”

The company noted that it has already supplied its technology to the German armed forces and is expanding to the UK to develop its technology further to “combat the cheap, expendable drone swarms that are overwhelming traditional air defences”.

As well as focusing on the UK as a market, Alpine Eagle also asserts that it sees the country “as a key base, not just as a customer, but to invest in manufacturing and hiring, allowing it to develop new products in the UK for future export”.

As the newly installed UK-based commercial director for Alpine Eagle, Gordon stated, “Whilst a huge amount of attention has been focused on drone technology, there has been very little energy dedicated to developing systems that can reliably and effectively protect against the thousands of drones being used in warfare, until now. The UK and Europe face the same challenge, and the UK’s military strength and influence on the world stage mean that it must be an integral part of the solution. We have to do this together, and that means that any solution built has to be by Europe, including the UK, for Europe. All of us together.”