58 From late spring through early autumn each year, the world is rife with trade shows and new tech reveals. Europe especially has become a hotbed for uncrewed innovations over the past few years. This may not come as a surprise, given the continent’s particular ramp-ups across defence capabilities in the face of mounting conflict at its borders, and greater pushes for technological capabilities and industrial capacities to support the growing ambitions of its military industries. As a result, a rising number of exhibitions dedicated to uncrewed systems are taking centre stage, and shows historically dominated by crewed aircraft are now sharing space with their autonomous cousins. With so much to see, and so much being unveiled for operators and manufacturers of uncrewed vehicles, we dropped in to Paris and Odense this June, to scour the Paris Air Show and the International Drone Show (IDS) Denmark, respectively, for interesting new aircraft and technologies – a selection of which we report on here. Danielson Aircraft Systems exhibited not only its Trident series of diesel engines (including the 100TD2, as featured in detail in Issue 62), but also a 40% scaled version of its ExSTOL UAV platform, an aircraft with a distinctive pair of annular box wings, each of which sweeps back and joins with its own nacelle-mounted outboard tail fin. “We designed this UAV configuration to achieve very, very short take-offs and landings, as well as long flight endurances, and 400 kg of combined fuel and payload carrying,” explained Benoit Delaporte of Danielson. Rory Jackson reports on his findings deep in the aisles of tech expos from Western to Northern Europe Lattés and Lego Trade shows across Europe abound with new space, aviation, robotics and powertrain technologies, throughout summer every year (Image courtesy of SIAE) August/September 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology
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