About
We build unmanned systems for the conditions that actually occur — jammed, cut off, resupplied late, repaired in the field by whoever is there.
Fenris Defence was founded in 2021 by engineers who had spent long enough around fielded systems to be sceptical of demonstrations. Most of what we saw worked beautifully on a clear day at a test range and became a liability the moment the electromagnetic environment turned hostile.
So the company started at the hardest parts: control links that hold under jamming, aircraft shaped for the spaces soldiers actually fight in, and air defence that does not run out of ammunition. The products exist to carry those answers. We expect the hardware to change. We do not expect the problems to.
We manufacture in-house because a supply chain you do not control is a capability you cannot promise. Components in the flight-critical path come from NATO-member states, firmware is signed, and customers get the bill of materials.
A human decides
Nothing we build selects or engages a target on its own. Every effect requires a positive human action, and loss of link means abort — never autonomous attack. This is a design constraint, not a setting.
Built to be repaired
Field-replaceable modules, published interfaces, no consumables that only we can supply. A system that must come back to the factory is a system that is not available.
Sovereign supply
NATO-country components through the critical path, signed firmware, and a bill of materials we can show you. No single-source dependency on a strategic competitor.
Honest degradation
When capability is lost, the operator is told what was lost and what happens next. Confident-looking output from a degraded sensor is worse than an admission of blindness.
Six entries. Figures and dates are indicative.
Founded
Fenris Defence established. Initial work on compact rotor configurations and jam-resistant control links.
First flights
HUGINN folding coaxial airframe flies inside a structure on its own navigation, with no satellite fix.
VALNAR
Waterproof heavy-lift quadcopter enters development around a two-hour, five-kilogram requirement.
Directed energy
HEIMDAL programme launched in response to the cost-per-engagement problem in counter-drone defence.
Fielded
Systems in service with NATO-member end users. Vehicle-mounted HEIMDAL configuration demonstrated on the move.
Scaling
Production capacity expanded across all three product lines.
Engineers who have seen it fail
We hire people who are interested in the ugly part — the sortie where the link dropped, the sensor that lied, the airframe that came back with something broken. If you have opinions about how autonomy should behave when it is losing, we want to hear them.