European AI-enhanced security command-and-control (C2) specialist MARSS attended the Eurosatory 2026 exhibition in Paris in June for the first time as a subsidiary of Australian defence company Electro Optic Systems Holdings (EOS).

MARSS also announced at the show that it has been selected to provide the C2 solution for BAE Systems’ counter-UAS systems. The agreement was confirmed live at Eurosatory on 16 June, with the two companies’ leadership meeting to sign a contract.

Under the deal MARSS’ NiDAR platform will serve as the intelligent nerve centre for the BAE Systems’ Anti Threat System (BATS): its most advanced and scalable counter-UAS capability to date.

The acquisition of MARSS, which was completed on 21 May 2026, less than a month before the Eurosatory opened, is a good fit for EOS, which can now add to its range of kinetic and laser-based counter-drone effectors MARSS’ AI-enabled C2 capabilities. The two countries can thus now jointly offer layered, integrated solutions for the force protection and the defence of critical infrastructure.

Speaking to Warsight at Eurosatory 2026 on 15 June, however, MARSS Founder and CEO Johannes Pinl explained why the acquisition also works for his company.

“In the defence sector you need to have a certain size,” he explained, “so we have grown quite a bit over the years, and especially now, with the new counter-drone solutions, mainstream contracts got bigger and bigger. And as soon as the contract is half a million or a billion dollars, the customers cannot deal with an SME. So we needed a big brother, a partner for a critical mass to really get break through this glass ceiling that we experienced, where just the customers are loving our tech very much, but unfortunately they said, ‘Guys, you’re too small.’ … If you are a decision maker in an MoD, you don’t get fired buying something from BAE Systems. However, from a small SME, if the contract goes wrong, it’s the buyer’s fault, right?”

SMEs, Pinl added, also have problems finding the financial reserves for large contracts. “If you win a USD 1 billion contract, you need to put USD 100 million to USD 200 million in bank guarantees down in the bank to the customer to actually win such contracts,” he said. “As an SME, that’s very difficult, so there’s an automatic glass ceiling for small enterprises like us, where you just can’t finance this, while the big guys have no problem.

“In our industry you need to partner,” Pinl continued, “and EOS was actually a perfect partner. They were already one of our suppliers. We bought their remote weapon stations for lots of our sites before for our customers, so we’ve been working with them for years and years together. They’re still in our industry relatively small, and agile, which we need to be as a tech company to quickly make decisions, but they’re on the stock market, have big pockets.”

Pinl said that these two requirements that EOS met – deep pockets but still agile enough to quickly deliver new technologies to the customer – meant EOS had “the perfect combination” to be its parent company.

EOS, meanwhile, has not been standing still with its own developments. In August 2025 the company secured the world’s first export order for a 100 kW-class high-energy laser weapon system for the Netherlands Ministry of Defence (MoD), marking a significant step in commercialising the company’s expertise in high- energy laser weapons. This system is currently at technology readiness level 7 (TRL 7) and will be delivered to the Dutch in late 2027 under an initial EUR 70 million contract, an EOS spokesman told Warsight at Eurosatory, adding that the project is six months ahead of schedule.

“The detailed design reviews were scheduled to take place in later this year, but the Dutch ministry want to proceed rapidly,” the spokesman explained, “so they’ve asked us to bring forward a lot of the detailed time work, which we have, and that was signed off just four weeks ago in May, so the whole programme is going to be delivered early, and the Dutch are looking at becoming one of the leading laser weapon operators in Europe.”

The Dutch MoD will then take this initial unit and use it to develop a concept of operations for protecting fixed high-value infrastructure before talking to EOS about a follow-on order.

One particular advantage enjoyed by EOS regarding the development of powerful laser weapons is the fact that it is based in Australia.

“We have two laser weapon firing ranges in Australia and testing laser weapons is quite a difficult thing,” the spokesman explained. “One of them is below the horizon and one of them is above the horizon. If you want to shoot a laser weapon above the horizon in Europe you need to close the airspace and get permission 18 months in advance. The airspace in the Australian desert is a lot less congested, so we get a lot of visitors.”

He added that EOS is also chasing a laser weapon contract for the German Navy, asserting that the company’s solution is not only more powerful and more mature than the competition but a tenth of the cost.

All the laser technology used by EOS is its own intellectual property, built from a 40-year track record of laser-tracking objects in space. Only its cooling and power systems are purchased off the shelf.